The Pub - Discuss Anything

[Vesper 28,268]

https://psyche.co/ideas/our-internal-clocks-could-be-key-for-preserving-mental-health

Circadian rhythms often seem ‘out of time’ in bipolar disorder. Scientists are exploring what goes wrong and how to help

There are rhythms all around us, and inside us.

People have had a sense of rhythm in the natural world for a long time. Three centuries ago, the biologist Carl Linnaeus knew that flowers had rhythms: at certain times of day, they open their buds, and at other times they close them. And he knew that flowers differed from each other. So he proposed the idea of a ‘flower clock’ – a garden laid thoughtfully according to each flower’s rhythm. He could step into such a garden and know the time: autumnal hawkbit opens by 7 am, scarlet pimpernel by 8 am, and so on.

While the scientific understanding of how biological time is made and measured is fairly new, biological clocks themselves are very old, at least 2 billion years or so. Biology runs at many timescales, some very short and others very long. And, in between, there’s a special, 24-hour timescale, matching the daily cycle of light and dark.

The early days on Earth were unpredictable and dangerous, so being able to tell time would be a special gift. It would allow an organism to anticipate regular changes in the environment and to allocate physiology and behaviour – foraging, mating, socialising, resting – to certain daily periods, when they were most beneficial to staying alive. Fortuitously, early life developed a basic biological clock: two cycling proteins that could ‘flip’ like an hourglass to measure 24-hour circadian time. (‘Circadian’ comes from the Latin circa, or ‘around’, and dies, ‘day’.)

The evolution of the circadian clock caught on. Billions of years later, we can find them inside almost every living thing. And inside billions of our cells, serving a variety of crucial functions. Today, scientists are discovering that these circadian clocks may also be critical for preserving mental health.

In humans, the control room of the circadian system is the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a bundle of neurons in the brain’s hypothalamus. This nucleus is tiny, but it has an outsized impact on our physiology, behaviour, health and wellbeing. It forms the central ‘pacemaker’ of our circadian biology, and its rhythms drum out the body’s loudest 24-hour beat. It is not the only one playing: inside the brain are other clocks that oscillate rhythmically and govern the daily timing of processes like mood, alertness and appetite. Beyond the skull lie other peripheral clocks – in the heart, liver, stomach, bones and within individual cells – that organise the goings-on of the rest of the body. Each oscillates to 24-hour rhythms, coordinating the timing of processes essential to each organ. But up in the control room sits the central pacemaker, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, a conductor orchestrating a symphony of rhythms.

How does the suprachiasmatic nucleus tell time? It has something to do with its Latin name. The suprachiasmatic nucleus is a bundle of cells (nucleus) sitting atop (supra) the optic chasm (chiasm), where the major nerves from our eyes cross. This affords it special backroom access to information about light coming to the brain from the eyes. Light and darkness are what the circadian system evolved to pay closest attention to. For our circadian clocks are like an old-time clock that needs to be ‘set’ each day, and it is light that primarily sets the time. Like an old-time clock, our circadian clocks can also come out of time – because they are created that way, because they develop that way, or because we disrupt them that way.

There is a growing sense that some illnesses may be caused, in part, by a mosaic of problems with circadian clocks. In particular, some scientists and clinicians think that bipolar disorder – which affects tens of millions of people worldwide – might be a ‘body clock disorder’.

Bipolar disorder refers to a family of chronic mental disorders characterised by abnormalities in energy, movement, thinking and mood. These abnormalities are most salient during periods when motor activity, energy and mood go way ‘up’ (during mania or hypomania) or way ‘down’ (during depression). Many people misunderstand what bipolar disorder is. Bipolar disorder is not ‘moodiness’; it is not all ‘psychological’ (though it has psychological effects); and it certainly does not mean ‘two personalities’. Bipolar disorder is biological, and it manifests in patterns and levels of activity, mood and energy that most of us will never experience.

The causes of bipolar disorder are tricky to pin down. Scientists know that bipolar disorder has a major genetic component. But what else is going on in the brain and the rest of the body? A myriad of causes have been hypothesised based on abnormalities in inflammatory processes, insulin signalling, mitochondria and oxidative stress, among others. Some scientists view bipolar disorder as a ‘multi-system’ illness, wherein many parts of the body are affected. This suggests that something has potentially gone awry in a biological control room, such as the one in the circadian system.

The notion that bipolar disorder is connected to the circadian system was proposed more than 40 years ago. But we now have new measurement tools and a fresh appreciation of the embeddedness of body clocks in physical and mental life. Those early circadian hypotheses continue to bloom, with the large constellation of observations suggesting that many people with bipolar disorder have clocks that are more fragile and sensitive to becoming dysregulated. It is worth acknowledging that some people with depressive and psychotic disorders also have body clock dysfunction. But bipolar disorder has been studied the most in this context, and its phenomenology and biology point more strongly to a circadian mechanism.

For people with bipolar disorder, changes in sleep are one of the most consistent signals that a person is headed towards a major episode of mania or depression, and sleep disruptions (like staying up much later than usual) can trigger an episode. A good clinician will help someone with bipolar disorder be monk-like about protecting their sleep and their rhythms – for example, by encouraging regular morning sunlight exposure, avoiding afternoon caffeine, and setting boundaries around sleep or wake times. People with bipolar disorder are much more likely to be evening types (‘night owls’), preferring a later timing of sleep, wake, eating and activity. This matters because some treatments for mood disorders don’t work as well for night owls.

When scientists study people inside chronobiology labs, they find that the biological rhythms of those with bipolar disorder are often different from the average person’s. Rhythms of melatonin, the ‘darkness hormone’, are often delayed and dampened, as are rhythms of core body temperature. Such differences are important because they tell us that parts of the internal world of people with bipolar disorder seem ‘out of time’ with the light-dark cycle. These dampened rhythms are more easily disrupted, which can cause poor sleep and potentially trigger major mood episodes. People with bipolar disorder may also have rhythms that are too early, rather than delayed. And a small study found that some people have rhythms that cycle between being delayed and being early as they cycle between being depressed and manic. It’s not clear how common this is. But it begins to paint a picture (blurry still) of a dynamic link between illness states and circadian rhythms.

Some circadian abnormalities are passed down within the families of people with bipolar disorder, which suggests that part of the link between bipolar disorder and circadian rhythms might be caused by genetic factors. When I and other researchers have tracked people over time, we’ve seen that when the offspring of people with bipolar disorder are more likely night owls, they are more likely to eventually develop bipolar disorder themselves. Changes in sleep can be seen early in childhood, many years before the onset of the disorder among those at high familial risk. But problems with sleep and the sleep-wake cycle appear in other mental disorders, too – whether due to the same or different reasons as bipolar disorder, we don’t know for sure. So, predicting who will go on to develop which disorder, if any disorder at all, is still very hard.

Abnormal circadian clocks are not, however, just a notable feature of bipolar disorder. They are also relevant to how these disorders are treated clinically, which includes – but goes well beyond – the precautions about sleep that I mentioned earlier.

For more than 20 years, clinicians have harnessed light and dark as therapeutic tools for managing bipolar disorder. One circadian tool, bright light therapy – in which a person sits before a special-made bright screen for a period of time each day – can improve the symptoms of the depressed phase of bipolar disorder. There are several hypotheses as to how this works. Light may cause changes in the activity of mood circuits in the brain, which has been demonstrated in animal models but not yet in humans. Or, bright light may help set the timing of the central circadian clock, which improves sleep and makes it easier to manage other symptoms. And if circadian dysregulation is itself a cause of the mood episode, it could be that stabilisation of the clock by regularly timed bright light may correct the mood episode too.

At the other end of the spectrum is dark therapy, which has its roots in the observation that people with mania can ‘deactivate’ down toward more normal levels of activity, energy and mood after a period of rest in the dark. It joined the 21st century with the discovery of special cells that form a critical node of the circadian system. These cells lie in the retina, but they don’t help us see. Rather, they observe the qualities of light from the outside world and communicate this information to the central circadian clock, informing its guess about the time of day. These cells are most sensitive to short wavelength light, what we perceive as ‘blue’. An innovation in dark therapy came with the idea that blocking blue light could give the brain’s circadian clock the impression that it is night, not day.

Modern dark therapy now uses amber-coloured ‘blue-blocking glasses’ for this purpose, and it has been shown in some trials to improve symptoms in people hospitalised with mania, such as increasing sleep efficiency and reducing motor activity during sleep. As with bright light therapy, we don’t know quite how this works. It might stabilise circadian rhythms in people whose rhythms are fragile, or it might eliminate the activating properties of light, to which some people with bipolar disorder may be hypersensitive.

Smart hospitals are experimenting with the idea of ‘circadian-friendly’ lighting on their wards. These special systems seek harmony between the positive effects of daylight and the negative effects of electric light at night. They ramp up the ‘blue-ness’ of light during the day and deplete it at night, a pattern that our circadian clock evolved to expect on our 24-hour planet. A recent trial of circadian-friendly lighting in a psychiatric unit showed improvements in sleep, circadian rhythms and clinical severity.

The story of circadian clocks is ancient, and they touch almost every aspect of our nature. Now, we are gathering evidence that it is possible to improve mental illness by harmonising with these natural rhythms. Time will tell whether this can help prevent these illnesses, too. Until then, it can’t hurt for each of us – including those who might be at increased risk of mental illness – to implement practices in our lives to keep our clocks strong. Be active during the day, both physically and socially, seek out the sun, and be a little monk-like about your sleep. Keep your days bright and your nights dark.

[NikkiCFC 7,881]

I can't help it. I'm night owl last 10 plus years. 

[Vesper 28,268]

The ways Sugar Babies navigate two roles: lover and employee

https://psyche.co/ideas/the-ways-sugar-babies-navigate-two-roles-lover-and-employee

‘Sugaring’ involves the commodification of romance – presenting a puzzle of love, labour and autonomy for those involved

When we think about romance, we often believe it exists outside the commercial landscape. From pop-song lyrics to cheesy catchphrases printed on mugs and cushions, this sentiment is expressed in tidy, well-known statements: ‘Money can’t buy you love’, ‘True love is priceless’, ‘The best things in life (love, companions, partnership) are free.’ Yet, just a quick glance at history proves to us that this isn’t really true. In fact, romance and commerce have long been intertwined.

Throughout history and across various cultures, the practice of older, more financially affluent individuals compensating younger, more attractive companions for their time and attention has been observed. If we stretch our gaze far back into history, for instance, to ancient Greece towards the end of the Archaic period (around 800-480 BCE), the custom of pederasty emerged. This was a socially recognised romantic relationship between an older male (erastes) and a younger male (eromenos), typically in his teens. Bringing the lens closer to modernity, in the early 20th century United States, the practice known as ‘treating’ emerged, where working-class women, often shop clerks in department stores, would offer companionship or sexual favours to male shoppers in exchange for meals, entertainment and gifts. Today, the same old story, whereby care and affection are commodities, is being retold, only with new language and social infrastructure to guide it.

In 2006, the US entrepreneur Brandon Wade launched the dating platform SeekingArrangement (now officially known as Seeking.com, it shifted in 2022 to a regular dating site). Unlike other online dating sites, it catered to a niche user group: primarily older, affluent men seeking young, beautiful women. Here, the two can find a symbiotic relationship wherein the older man, referred to as the Sugar Daddy, can provide mentorship, rent coverage, network connections, and often weekly or monthly payment plans known as ‘allowances’. In exchange, the younger woman, referred to as the Sugar Baby, offers emotional, intellectual and often (but not always) sexual services. This phenomenon, informally known as ‘sugaring’, stands out as a unique aspect of modern life, straddling the line between what appears to be an authentic romantic relationship and a transactional arrangement.

Often, the two participants’ lives are entangled, spending nights at each other’s homes, going out for dinners or travelling together. To some degree, they build their lives around each other. Encapsulated within this relationship is a shared understanding that the flow of gifts and money will not stop. That this emotional, material and sexual economy is not a haphazard occurrence but an intrinsic agreement, essential for the survival of the dynamic. Together there is a collaborative blurring of what is bought, what is sold, what is performed labour, and what is an authentic action. The two lovers take on a dual role as both romantic partners and employer/employee.

The amorphous nature of sugaring has the potential to leave participants in a state of purgatory

From the Sugar Daddy’s perspective, this dynamic seems optimal – a sure way to secure consistent emotional and sensual investment in a cultural landscape riddled with loneliness. This is particularly poignant for many older men who feel engulfed by the demands of corporate capitalism, its knock-on effect of isolation, and the silo mentality that hegemonic masculinity produces. Conversely, sugaring is also beneficial because it provides financial compensation for emotional labour – the labour of validating others’ feelings, mediating their temper and alleviating their worries. All of which women have been historically overworked and undercompensated for.

At first glance, the commodification of romance seems straightforward. However, it becomes increasingly complex when we begin to examine the foundations of romance as a form of work. Specifically, what happens when one’s job is to perform as an authentic romantic partner – as the terms ‘perform’ and ‘authentic’ stand in direct polarity to one another. The amorphous nature of sugaring has the potential to leave many participants in a state of purgatory – straddling the authentic domain of dating, romance, and even love – as well as monetisation, income and labour. As a result, sugaring prompts a murky understanding of where one stands in relation to the other, when they are ‘clocked in or out’ of their job, what is contractually agreed upon, and what is monetarily ensured. All of which are questions any labourer within modernity deserves a clear answer to.

To answer these questions, I spent four months conducting semi-structured interviews with self-identifying Sugar Babies who either have had, or currently do have a relationship with a Sugar Daddy. While not all, many interviewees stated sugaring to be their primary source of income. It dictates their spending habits, rent agreements and savings accounts. However, since sugaring is also posed as a relationship, it can, like all romantic affairs, be terminated at a moment’s notice – similar to a breakup. This ending may take many forms, whether it be a lengthy, emotionally drawn-out breakup, a discussion over dinner, a quick call or text, or even a hasty ghosting. This leaves the Sugar Baby to reconcile both the loss of consistent income and the loss of a romantic partner – one whom they may have spent weeks, months or years getting to know.

With this volatility, there is also the issue of financial consistency. Lilah, a 22-year-old Sugar Baby from Canada mentioned during our Zoom call that often, in sugar relationships, conversations around payments take place early on. This allows both parties to understand what they stand to gain and provide before any emotional or sexual investment begins. However, this conversation is best understood as a loosely defined contract, relying on trust and mutual respect rather than written word or legal binding.

In contrast, within the mainstream workforce, workers are given clearly defined contracts outlining what is demanded and owed. Additionally, workers are granted annual reviews, prompting requests for raises to match inflation or reflect one’s growing commitment to the company. Sugaring, however, is far more informal. Renegotiation may feel inherently unromantic. Legal entitlement to compensation falls between the cracks. Lilah recalls certain moments when the monthly allowance would have been $200 less than what was originally agreed upon. Despite this breach of agreement, addressing the issue felt daunting, as it involved navigating a difficult conversation about trusting a romantic partner to uphold their word, as well as a worker’s right to fair compensation.

While the loosely defined nature of sugaring contracts can pose risks to financial stability, it also offers certain freedoms and autonomy. For example, Sugar Babies are free from the demands of traditional jobs that require them to show up at a desk every day, work a nine-to-five schedule, perform repetitive tasks, and spend hours on Zoom calls or in meetings. Jessa, a 25-year-old Sugar Baby from Australia, mentioned during our conversation that this freedom over her schedule was what initially attracted her to the practice. As someone with health concerns, she couldn’t always rely on mainstream jobs to provide the time off she needed for rest and recovery.

However, Jessa also noted that this freedom from conventional work demands often transforms into another form of restriction. Some Sugar Daddies expect extreme flexibility, requiring her to be available at a moment’s notice for trips or evening events. This reflects what scholars have termed the ‘autonomy paradox’, where individuals who appear to have significant freedom or independence in their personal or professional lives actually experience hidden forms of constraint or control.

Sugaring reminds us that love, labour, authenticity and compensation have always been intricately interwoven

In formal work settings, this is most commonly found among freelancers or ‘work from home’ employees who struggle to set boundaries, enforcing the end of the workday and the beginning of their personal time. Sugar Babies, too, are subjected to this, with open, sprawling days to explore the world, yet always with a red string tying them back to their partner. The evolution of technology only catalyses this – wifi, texting, FaceTime and social media platforms prompt Sugar Babies to be always available, always ‘on’, for their quasi-boss-meets-romantic partner. There are no out-of-office hours, no end of shift. If we reframe romance as a profession, it can quickly resemble a 24/7 occupation. From this, a type of ‘fictional freedom’ is born – barring Sugar Babies from the ability to set their own schedules, book time off, and step away from their duties.

Again and again, the phenomenon of sugaring raises the question of what happens when work and romance become inherently entangled – not in the sense of a whirlwind office romance, but in a more evolved form where a longstanding romantic relationship is itself a profession. Increasingly, social scripts have been written to distinguish the public sector from the private. In the public domain, we leave our homes or remote lives to engage in work, labour and finances, participating in acts of commodification, consumption and purchase. Connected to this we have come to believe that ‘on the other end of the spectrum’ is the private domain – comprising the home, family, and intimate relationships, which are acquired through abstract concepts like kindness, tenderness and intimacy, rather than bought or sold.

However, perhaps it’s time for us to reconsider how the two are continuously folding in on one another, bending to each other’s will and influencing their foundational nature. Sugaring does this for us. It sheds light on corners of the world where romance and commerce explicitly blur together, reminding us that themes such as love, labour, authenticity and compensation have always been, and continue to be, intricately interwoven – a far more slippery and arresting truth than we have previously been comfortable with.

[Fulham Broadway 16,661]

11 minutes ago, Vesper said:

If we stretch our gaze far back into history, for instance, to ancient Greece towards the end of the Archaic period (around 800-480 BCE), the custom of pederasty emerged. This was a socially recognised romantic relationship between an older male (erastes) and a younger male (eromenos), typically in his teens.

And guaranteed the filthy pederasts were commies

[Vesper 28,268]

Why Do Americans Want to Dress Like Swedes?

The Stockholm fashion label Toteme has a no-nonsense, “pragmatic” look — and a lot of fans in New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/style/toteme-sweden-nyfw.html

The Toteme founders Elin Kling and Karl Lindman in Stockholm in August. Credit...David B. Torch for The New York Times

 

Toteme, the fashion label, is not a word. But it comes from one.

“I had the idea of ‘Totem,’” said Karl Lindman, who co-founded the company 10 years ago with his wife, Elin Kling. They married the same year.

“One of the meanings of the word ‘totem’ — and there are a lot — is a symbol for the like-minded,” Mr. Lindman, 42, said.

But Ms. Kling, 41, thought the name sounded too “masculine.” She was making clothes for women. So she suggested adding an “e,” elongating and softening the pronunciation. The addition also gave symmetry to a square-shaped monogram that Mr. Lindman, then the design director of Interview magazine, had been developing.

“It’s our take on the word,” he said. As I sat across from the couple at a long wooden table in the backyard of their Hamptons, N.Y., home, I wondered if there was a Swedish word for “totem.” Mr. Lindman paused for a moment: “It’s the same.”

Mr. Lindman and Ms. Kling are both Swedish, based in Stockholm, but they come to Long Island every July. Their shingled home in Amagansett, purchased about three years ago, is as close as you can get to the beach without living on it.

Yet they should not be confused for Hamptons types; they are walking advertisements for Toteme, a brand often referred to in fashion media as “minimalist.” That word makes Ms. Kling wrinkle her nose.

“To me, it’s more about strength,” she said. “Pragmatic.”

“It’s not wrong to say that sweet Swedish fashion has been quite minimal and utilitarian and practical in the past,” Mr. Lindman added. “That being our heritage is something that we embrace. But we’re not doing it only for the sake of it. We’re designing clothes that make sense for you and your life, and they tend to be quite minimal.”

Toteme is built around what fashion people call “elevated basics”: classic silhouettes in rich textiles, with just a touch of design. Like a nice blazer, somewhere between sleek and oversize, made from a fabric blend described on Toteme’s website as having “a spongy hand feel.” (It costs $980.) They are not reinventing the wheel, but they are dressing the wheel in a way that makes her feel composed, smart and secure in her style. Can an outfit be punctual?

Maybe if it’s Swedish. When I arrived at their Amagansett home exactly one minute before our scheduled meeting, the first remark Mr. Lindman made was that my timing was “very Swedish.”

The couple really is very Swedish: humble and hospitable, only dryly funny, with light hair, high foreheads, blue eyes — more blue when they have their summer tans — and two children, ages 6 and 9, who were seen but not heard.

They have an office in Stockholm with about 150 people, as well as employees in London and New York. Yet Toteme has found much of its success in the United States, the label’s “focus market,” Mr. Lindman said. On Sept. 10, when they open a boutique on Madison Avenue in Manhattan, four of their 15 stores will operate in the United States. These American stores are the largest and best-performing, according to the company.

Sales in the United States have quadrupled in the last three years, a spokeswoman said. The company’s global revenue was $150 million last year.

“It does incredible in the U.S.,” confirmed Alison Loehnis, the interim chief executive and president of Yoox Net-a-Porter, which has stocked Toteme since its first collection. (In those early days, the only place you could buy Toteme online was Net-a-Porter.) “I would not say in any way it is a specifically American aesthetic, but the fact that it resonates so keenly and in the biggest market, it doesn’t shock me.”

So it made some sense that Toteme chose to join the New York Fashion Week calendar this season. On Tuesday, it will present a summer collection of mostly black and white pieces meant for “high summer in the city,” Ms. Kling said. (Forget the Hamptons, although I did spot one lemony yellow look in the lineup during a preview with the designer on Zoom.)

Ms. Kling herself prefers to dress in black during the summer. She finds it looks more “sharp and elegant” than the typical colorful sundress.

“I like to wear a white dress in November and a black dress in July,” she said. When she’s not wearing Toteme, her uniform is a Charvet shirt, vintage Levi’s and Cartier jewelry.

Ms. Kling, a former fashion blogger and magazine editor, was already living in New York when she met a fellow expat, Mr. Lindman. As they built Toteme, she would focus on design, and he on packaging.

“Sweden is quite an equal country,” she said. “The women are quite independent. But I have to say, I also feel the same way in New York.”

Her goal has been to make “clothes for the working woman,” she said: “There needs to be a reality, a simplicity.” Ms. Kling and her husband often talk about how they’re more interested in style than fashion.

“I think they’re underplaying themselves,” said Camilla Nickerson, an influential stylist who is working on Toteme’s New York runway show, and who was “immediately inspired” by Ms. Kling.

“She has an uncompromising and quietly assertive sense of design,” Ms. Nickerson said. “That’s what women need right now.”

While the couple founded the company here, they returned to Stockholm in 2016 to find a “sense of purpose," Mr. Lindman said. In the Swedish capital, he said, “people are sort of happier with what they’ve got.” It has been easier to retain employees and build a long-term business there.

They call Toteme their third child, and people sometimes ask whether working together ever complicates their marriage.

“For most people, it’s complicated to organize a trip or a renovation because suddenly you have to work together,” Mr. Lindman said. “For us, that’s our default mode. When we don’t have a project to work on, we’re like, ‘What are we going to talk about?’”

In the early days of the company, Toteme struggled to get the attention of department stores. (Wholesale today represents about 50 percent of sales; Nordstrom is their largest account in the United States.) Streetwear and logos were more trendy than “quiet luxury” at the time.

“We never had a strategy of ‘let’s conquer America’ or ‘let’s go to France,’” Mr. Lindman said. (The brand’s first runway show was held in Paris in January.)

But over the years, certain pieces, like a T-lock bag with a curved handle, have exploded in popularity in cities outside of Stockholm. Toteme has sold more than 30,000 of these purses, the company said, in different variations. A wool jacket with a built-in scarf, priced at $1,130 was once called a “worldwide phenomenon.”

The founders’ reaction to these viral moments is, of course, very Swedish: “For good and bad, we don’t really celebrate any success,” Mr. Lindman said. “We’re always sort of like, ‘What could we have done better?’”

Still, it is a success that these pieces are not yet passé to customers. The scarf jacket was released two years ago, which might as well be seven in fashion years. Yet Ms. Loehnis, the Yoox Net-a-Porter president, said new versions of the scarf coat remained Toteme’s top seller on the Net-a-Porter site.

“It’s also our most engaged kind of fashion-forward customers who are buying it,” Ms. Loehnis said.

Which may explain why I recently came across a box of matches that said, in capital letters on one side, “The Row & Khaite & Toteme.” The matchboxes were made by Jess Graves, who writes The Love List, a popular shopping Substack, as a kind of inside joke for her fashionista readers. These are the brands that excite them — Toteme because of how particularly unexciting it can be.

“They really know who their customer is,” Ms. Graves said during a dinner for her newsletter in New York last week. “I hate to use the term, but I think it’s the ‘quiet luxury’ girl. It’s the girl who likes to build a wardrobe of items that last a long time.”

“I mean, these shoes are cool,” Ms. Graves continued, pointing to the sharp square-toe Phoebe Philo heels she was wearing, “but they’re going to look stupid in two years.”

[Vesper 28,268]

My Life In Booze: Stephen Cronk

Food & Drink

 

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 11-09-2024

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Stephen Cronk is co-founder and president of Maison Mirabeau – the Provençal rosé brand you see in all the right places. We asked the veteran winemaker about his own favourite drinks, bars and boozers.

 

https://slman.com/life/food-drink/my-life-in-booze-stephen-cronk

 

THE GUARD'S BAR & LOUNGE AT THE OWO

 

The first drink I ever enjoyed was a pint of bitter. I snuck out of school one evening when I was about 16, and some of the older kids treated me to a classic warm, flat English beer. That sparked my love for beer, which eventually led to a love of wine. Like most people, I drink more selectively these days – I want to really enjoy the moment.

I could talk about my favourite wines for hours, but some of the best these days are the sustainable ones. A friend of mine makes an incredible chenin blanc from Anjou called Domaine Belargus – I love a Ronceray white as it’s so elegant. This one has notes of peach and pear, but also a fresh salinity. Close to our vineyard in Provence is a young regenerative farmer in Bandol, making a great red called For My Dad. It’s made of mainly grenache and mourvedre grapes. The fruit is so present and it’s gorgeous and silky, reminiscent of a balmy evening in the South of France. I also have to give my own regeneratively farmed rosé, La Réserve, a little plug, because, even if I am biased, I love every moment when I drink it. I love rosé because it quenches your thirst and cleanses the palate.

But sometimes, only a beer hits the spot. We have a great microbrewery in our village in Provence called La Tuf, so that’s my go-to. When I’m London I love drinking London Pride from Fuller’s Brewery. When it comes to beer and wine – and also cocktails – a good drink is all about balance. Anything that’s out of balance will be a disappointment and you’ll be wondering what’s missing or not right. And I love flavours that surprise, something that makes you stop and think ‘wow’ as you sip is fantastic.

I’m a big fan of both champagne and English sparkling wine. I’ve been sampling some great English sparklers, including Blanc de Noir from our friends over at Coates and Seely, as well as the delicious White Cliffs Blanc de Blancs from the Simpson’s family-run wine estate in Kent. My wife Jeany and I work with a small champagne house in France called Philipponnat, which makes an awesome rosé cuvée, as well as a delicious reserve with zero dosage if you like your champagne ultra-dry.

The Connaught

 

When I’m at home, I like to make gin palomas using our Mirabeau Rosé Gin. Made from grapes, it’s refreshing, light and perfect for warmer days. To make it, fill a large wine glass with ice. Then add in a double measure of gin (50ml), a simple measure of fresh grapefruit juice (30ml), the juice of half a lime, and a tablespoon of agave syrup. Give it a gentle stir and top up with soda. I like to decorate it with a large pink grapefruit peel – give it a slight twist before adding to the drink to express some essential oils. You could even add a sprig of rosemary.

The most memorable cocktail I’ve ever had was a negroni at Mr Fogg’s Residence in Mayfair. It was my first ever negroni and it couldn’t have been in a better bar. To me, a good bar must have a high-quality cocktail list, great ambience, and friendly people behind it. It’s a special moment when you watch someone make your drink. I’ll always have a quick chat with the barman to ask about their inspiration and pick up any at-home tips.

If I’m out with my mates, I order a pint of real ale or a Guinness. I also love a cold weissbier, ideally with some Bavarian sausages, which reminds me of the amazing wedding breakfast we had the day after we got married many years ago.

When I have friends over, I like to serve rosé from a magnum because it’s fun and more impactful. Nothing is more special than sharing a bottle with the people you love. I proposed to my wife Jeany over rosé, so even before we were making it, it had a special place in our lives.

My favourite spirit brand is Oban. It’s such a classic and you get the quality whisky you pay for. I also rate Sapling Spirits and Discarded Spirits for their dedication to sustainability and commitment to making a positive change. Of course, the drinks are great too.

La Tuf

The most expensive drink I’ve ever ordered was a bottle of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon. We were at a very nice steak restaurant in Dallas and… I wasn’t paying! So yes, it was definitely worth it. And the strangest drink I’ve ever had was a cocktail made with mezcal infused with worms. I’ve been told the worms add a silk texture to the finished product. It was indeed a very tasty drink. 

One of my favourite pubs is The Orange in Pimlico. It’s a Cubitt House establishment so you can trust everything will be spot on, from the cool interiors to the food and its selection of beers. For a special occasion, The Connaught Bar is awesome, as is the new The Guard's Bar & Lounge at the OWO, where we have a cocktail on the list. We like to pop in for a glass of wine, followed by some small plates at St John which is near our home.

I still love a well-made G&T with a good-quality gin. I pop the gin in the freezer and use the classic Fever-Tree Indian Tonic. It’s so refreshing and is easy to make when you come home after a long day. I add a slice of citrus, rosemary sprig and lots of ice. When I’m not drinking, I like Mother Root, an alcohol-free aperitif, which is great with a large wedge of lemon and sparkling water.

Every at-home bar should have a good bottle of gin and a scotch whisky. Also, a nice bottle of vermouth – I like Vault – and some good bitters like Luxardo. That’s all you need to make good, easy drinks. My dream bar would have Richard Brendon glasses. All his glassware is top of the game, and I love the wine glasses he made with Jancis Robinson. They convinced me that nice glasses make a real difference to the experience.

I try not to have too many hangovers these days. The secret is to stop drinking a little earlier and to have some food. But if it’s a big night, a sachet of electrolytes with plenty of water before I go to bed helps curb a hangover. That and some scrambled egg on sourdough, with a strong coffee when I wake up to blow off the cobwebs.

Visit MaisonMirabeau.com

 

The Connaught

 

 

SHOP STEPHEN'S FAVOURITES BELOW

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Spinning the night self

After years of insomnia, I threw off the effort to sleep and embraced the peculiar openness I found in the darkest hours

https://aeon.co/essays/tender-and-creative-is-the-night-on-the-benefits-of-insomnia

I wake up, faintly groggy with sleep, and try to guess the time. Midnight is surprisingly noisy, with a steady stream of traffic bringing people home from the West End in London, while 3am carries a curiously muffled sound, and 4:10am is when the first aeroplane skims my house with its familiar whine of descent. As my ears strain into the darkness, I sense the soft silence of 3am. Once I would have groaned, cursed and plugged the (largely ineffectual) sound of gently lapping waves into my ears. But, tonight, I listen to the emptiness for a few pleasurable moments, then I reach for my notebook and a candle.

I’ve had insomnia for 25 years. Three years ago, after a series of bereavements, I stopped battling my sleeplessness. Instead, I decided to investigate my night brain, to explore the curious effects of darkness on my mind. I’d long felt slightly altered at night, but now I wondered whether darkness and sleeplessness might have gifts to give: instead of berating myself, perhaps I could make use of my subtly changed brain.

I’m not the first person to notice a shift in thoughts and emotions after dark. ‘Why does one feel so different at night?’ asks Katherine Mansfield in her short story ‘At the Bay’ (1921). Mansfield herself became more and more fearful after dark, often barricading herself into her apartment by pushing all the furniture against the front door. And yet, later in life, insomniac nights became one of her most creative times, as she confided to her journal:

It often happens to me now that when I lie down to sleep at night, instead of getting drowsy, I feel more wakeful and I … begin to live over either scenes from real life or imaginary scenes … they are marvellously vivid.

Mansfield referred to her nocturnal imagination as the ‘consolation prize’ for her insomnia.

Around the same time, Virginia Woolf was pondering her own feelings of ‘irresponsibility’ that struck when the lights went down. She too recognised that night rendered us ‘no longer quite ourselves’. After completing each of her books, Woolf was plagued by insomnia – which she made use of to plot out her next novel. ‘I make it up in bed at night,’ she explained of her most inventive novel, Orlando (1928). Night was also a time of epiphany: after protracted struggles with her novel The Years (1937), Woolf’s dramatic breakthrough came ‘owing to the sudden rush of two wakeful nights’ when she was finally able to ‘see the end’. A few years later, the writer Dorothy Richardson noted that, around midnight, ‘she grew steady and cool … it was herself, the nearest most intimate self she had known.’ In her fictionalised autobiography, Pilgrimage (1915-38), Richardson’s alter-ego Miriam finds her most authentic, radical and original self in the solitude of her wakeful nights. For Richardson, reading and writing when she should have been sleeping were acts of resistance, acts that revealed herself to herself, undistracted by the detritus of daylight.

My night-awakenings began during my first pregnancy. Ten years later – with four children and several years of working across time zones under my belt – a full night of sleep in a single stretch had become a rarity. Most nights, I woke between 2am and 4am, tossed and turned for an hour, then read until I drifted back for a (short) sleep before the alarm went off. I invested in sleep aids: melatonin, weighted blankets, eye masks, sleep-inducing supplements, oils, mattresses, pillows, sheets, pills, apps, bed socks. I experimented with various sleep hygiene routines proposed by ‘experts’. To no avail.

The latest statistics suggest that one in six of us cannot get to sleep, or stay asleep, a figure that is higher for women. At the last count, 8 per cent were taking sleep medication and 11 per cent were regularly splashing out on sleep aids. In 2019, the global market for sleep products was valued at $74.3 billion. Experts predict it will be worth $125 billion by 2031. Frightening, and sometimes misleading, stories appear regularly in the media linking poor sleep to obesity, heart disease, dementia and premature death.

A historical perspective offers us some help here. Sleep deprivation is nothing new: women have always been responsible for night-nursing multiple (often sick or dying) children, elderly relatives and animals; wash days often started at 3am; mattresses were thick with lice; winter nights were ice-cold. Like us, our ancestors suffered from many of the same physiological disruptions now linked to poor sleep, from menstrual and pregnancy cramping to the fluctuating progesterone and oestrogen of the menopause. Like us, they routinely experienced the stresses and anxieties now known to disrupt sleep.

I put away my sleep aids and let my grieving brain lean into the dark nights

Published and unpublished letters and journals show that, for centuries, many women embraced nocturne, finding within it a time of solitude and creativity. The literary critic Greg Johnson in 1990 noted that female writers seemed to have a peculiar talent for making ‘creative profit’ from their insomniac nights. He is right, and not just about writers. Over eight months of wakeful nights, the artist Louise Bourgeois produced her Insomnia Drawings (1994-95), a series of 220 sketches. The Insomnia Drawings were immediately snapped up by the Daros Collection in Switzerland, making instant ‘creative profit’ for Bourgeois, who also credited their production with easing 50 frustrating years of nocturnal tossing and turning. Lee Krasner’s ‘night journey’ paintings, made between 1959 and 1962 in the wake of two bereavements, are now among her most valuable and coveted. Meanwhile, Sylvia Plath wrote Ariel (1965), her most brilliant and acclaimed poetry collection, ‘in the blue dawns, all to myself, secret and quiet.’ Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Margaret Thatcher used the sleeping hours to increase the volume of their (arguably bold) output. Enheduanna watched the stars and produced the poetry that made her literature’s earliest known author. And Vera Rubin discovered dark matter, later saying of these wide-awake and alone nights at the telescope: ‘There was just nothing as interesting in my life as watching the stars every night.’

I call these women my Night Spinners.

Several years ago, when I lost loved ones, my flimsy sleep disintegrated and I lost all appetite for battle. Inspired by aeons of Night Spinners, I put away my sleep aids and let my grieving brain lean into the dark nights. When I woke (which could be any time between midnight and 4am), I got up and wrote, drew, watched the stars. I slept outside (night after night), went for long walks, swam in lunar-light, and taught myself the constellations and the phases of the Moon. I tracked and surveyed glow worms and moths. I watched badgers, and followed the call of owls and nightingales. I discovered a mesmerising nocturnal world.

My nocturnal mind was different. Why did I feel both more fearful and more tranquil? Why was I more inclined to fret and fume? To behave with greater recklessness? Why did images, ideas, memories so often collide in a curious collage of colour and novelty? Writing problems I encountered during the day found solutions as I ambled round the darkened house, peering at the night sky from every passing window. In the middle of sleepless nights, my mind felt less logical, less methodical. My grip on assessing and prioritising less assured. But in return, my inner critic fell silent. Ideas and thoughts meandered, melded and merged. I refused to pass judgment, but in the morning, when I looked afresh at whatever I’d written in the night, I often liked it.

From the work of chronobiologists, we know that our bodies – our blood, breath, bones, saliva and skeletal muscle – change at night. Breast cancer cells divide more quickly. Muscles weaken. Our fat cells, kidneys and intestines become slow and sluggish. Blood pressure drops. Appetites fade. Our temperature falls. Many of these changes appear to be tied not to sleep but to darkness. Scientists are beginning to understand that our brains are also altered at night, most notably as they cycle through a series of sleep stages. As I researched the Night Spinners, a pioneering study called ‘The Mind After Midnight’ (2022) appeared in my email inbox.

According to its authors (a group of eminent sleep scientists in the US), as hormones rise and fall, so the brain shape-shifts. The researchers had noted a greater risk of suicide, self-harm and other ‘risky’ behaviours among depressed people awake at night. They weren’t sure why this happened but suggested a few possible explanations. Was it an evolutionary adaptation designed to keep us vigilant and ready for action at a time when we were once most at risk of predation? Was it a result of synaptic saturation, whereby the brain rests in readiness for another day and so can’t function with its usual deftness and clarity? Was it because of altered hormones – rising melatonin, falling cortisol, dawn-peaking dopamine? Or was it because of the quietening of a vital neural network responsible for executive function, for managing our thoughts, actions and emotions – and known collectively as the prefrontal cortex? The prefrontal cortex (sometimes called our command and control centre, and thought to be the most highly evolved brain region) is very sensitive to sleep and sleep deprivation. Researchers speculate that it takes a restorative break at night – leaving us fractionally less rational, less organised and a little more at the whim of our emotions.

A resting prefrontal cortex might also explain why studies indicate that we are more likely to feel enraged and fearful at night. Or why reformed gamblers, drinkers and smokers are more likely to succumb to old temptations. Or why the celebrated writer Jean Rhys – who frequently wrote at, and about, night – was described by her biographer as ‘a lap-dog’ by day and ‘a wolf’ by night. Rhys liked to rise at a ‘wolfish’ 3am and ‘smoke one cigarette after another’, describing this dark hour as ‘the best part of the day’, when her thoughts were subtly altered. At night, it seems, the filter between us and the outside world is fractionally thinner and frailer. It’s not that our emotions change, but that our ability to control changes. We experience the world more viscerally: the highs are higher and the lows are lower.

The pioneering 15th-century feminist Laura Cereta had subversive ideas as she wrote through the night

This nocturnal rawness and instability could be due to insufficient sleep: when Japanese researchers used MRI to investigate, they found that blood flow between the amygdala (sometimes called the brain’s emotional HQ and our threat-detection hub) and the prefrontal cortex slows down when we don’t get enough sleep. In other words, our night brain could be partly explained by insufficient delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the prefrontal cortex. The researcher Andrew Tubbs – co-author of ‘The Mind After Midnight’ study – thinks that sleep deprivation might act as fuel for the night imagination. Tubbs told me that sleeplessness ‘can increase connectivity between disparate brain regions … as some brain regions become exhausted, [neural] connectivity increases so that other brain parts can compensate.’ He speculates that, as the brain is nudged into processing information ‘in unusual ways, it throws up novel and unusual ideas.’

Studies also suggest that, in women, the prefrontal cortex is larger and more active than in men. Might some women find it easier to free themselves, after dark, from the constraints of their diurnally active brains? Could this explain why Joan Mitchell’s paintings changed dramatically when she began night painting? Or why the pioneering 15th-century feminist Laura Cereta had such subversive ideas as she wrote through the night? Both women certainly thought so – Mitchell continued to paint at night for the rest of her life, while Cereta maintained that her ‘sweet night vigils’ were responsible for the ‘red-hot anger [that] lays bare a heart and mind long muzzled by silence.’

Nightly hormonal change may also affect our insomniac minds, colouring our emotions and perceptions. For instance, scientists now think that dopamine may be both a hormone of creativity and connected to light/dark cycles. When the anthropologist Polly Wiessner studied the Kalahari Bush people, she noticed that the way in which people communicated shifted after dark, becoming more imaginative, evocative and symbolic when gathered around a fire at night. We don’t know whether the speculated evening peaking of dopamine receptors contributed, but Wiessner noticed the way in which this linguistic shift contributed to greater empathy and more tolerance. I too noticed how, awake at night, I often felt more receptive, compassionate and open-minded. Things I might have brushed aside or considered unduly esoteric by day took on a new poignancy and possibility.

As I embraced sleeplessness, I became aware of the calming effects of scanning the night sky. In 2001, the psychologist William Kelly noticed that many of his students found great pleasure in star-gazing. It seemed to yield a subtly altered state of mind, and Kelly decided to investigate. Over the next decade, he ran a series of experiments, finding that people who enjoyed looking upwards into starry darkness also exhibited greater curiosity, were more open to new experiences, and more inclined to think fantastical thoughts. They were also more likely to wholeheartedly engage with whatever grabbed their interest, to mull over unusual ideas and fantastical possibilities, to seek out novel sensations. Kelly coined the term ‘noctcaelador’, a mash-up of the Latin nocturnus meaning ‘night-time’, caelum meaning ‘sky’, and adorare meaning ‘to adore’.

In 2016, together with his colleague Don Daughtry, Kelly carried out another study. He had an inkling that night sky-watching might also be connected to more lateral thought: his survey of 233 students suggested he was right. Did looking star-wards loosen the imagination, he wondered, or were creative people just more likely to gaze upwards at night? Kelly also wondered whether there might be a third variable influencing the relationship between star-gazing and creativity. Today, awe scientists think that looking at the night sky induces a sense of profound wonder, capable of lowering blood pressure, reducing inflammation, and increasing levels of oxytocin. These scientists might say that Kelly’s ‘third variable’ was a feeling of awe sparked by observing the constellations. But I think Kelly was on to something that goes beyond awe, that he had stumbled on the Night Self – the version of ourselves wired for nocturne.

I needed to retrain my fearful night brain via a steady process of habituation

I discovered another behavioural trait of my Night Self: the psychological effects of an absence of light. We know that women are more affected by darkness. Many of my friends cannot sleep alone in an empty house, let alone take a solitary walk, at night. Studies show that one in two women feels unsafe walking alone after dark, even in a busy public place. Being in darkness frightens many of us. With a less active prefrontal cortex to talk down our fears, wide-eyed nights can balloon into occasions of terror in which we douse ourselves in artificial light, to feel safer.

Fear impedes the workings of our more imaginative and reflective night brain, but several studies have already linked the rise in breast and prostate cancer with excessive night light. Other conditions are being linked to bright nocturnal illumination – depression, anxiety, psychosis, bipolar disorder. Some researchers point the finger at the blue-rich LED lights that have now largely replaced all the earlier incandescent (and less blue-rich) bulbs. I decided that if I was to benefit creatively from my sleepless nights with my health intact, I needed to retrain my fearful night brain via a steady process of habituation. On ever lengthier night walks, I paid close attention to my shifting senses and to my nocturnal amplified sense of sound and smell. Studies suggest that even our olfactory bulb is governed by circadian rhythms, growing more acute after dark.

I grew to love my wakeful nights. All that remained was to rid myself of the fear of an early death – as threatened by endless headlines. The Night Spinners reminded me that premature death wasn’t inevitable: lifelong insomniac Louise Bourgeois lived dementia-free until the age of 98; Proust’s night-working housekeeper, Céleste Albaret, lived until 92; and sleepless star-gazer Caroline Herschel was a healthy 97 when she died in 1848. It helped too that new research trickled out questioning the age-old assumptions. As one longitudinal study stated: ‘In women, mortality was not associated with insomnia and short sleep duration.’ I was not about to die from my broken nights – I was free to enjoy them! Men, however, may need to be a little more circumspect. More research is needed, but early studies indicate that women might be more metabolically resilient to short or broken nights.

To be clear, like any sleep-deprived person, I longed for a luxurious night of uninterrupted slumber. But, as I became acquainted with the gifts of darkness, so my sleep slowly returned. Leaning into my Night Self, being in a darkness that few of us experience in our light-saturated world, provided an antidote to today’s stress-inducing sleep zealotry as well as to my own fear of the dark. I still have runs of splintered sleep, but I no longer let them disturb me. I’ve learnt that a 20-minute power walk reboots my weary brain as well as a nap, that yoga nidra is almost as restful as sleep, and that reflecting when I should be sleeping might be good for my brain. Best of all, I have a fat notebook of night-ish lyrics and poems, the sorts of writings my sensible Day Self would never countenance. One day I might use them for my own ‘creative profit’.