Good day my lovely listeners. You are listening to The Forty Autie Podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive headfirst into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalizing tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. Hello lovely people and welcome back to The Forty Autie Podcast. How are you doing today? It is still a very bright sunny day in the lovely area of North Yorkshire. We're still within the COVID isolation currently and although the new guidelines have come out, I'm still out of work but we've got a lot of more opportunities to do things like this. Do a few more podcasts, do a few more YouTube videos and stuff and today we're going to be talking about autism and demisexuality and I'm sure that many people out there will be a little bit confused about the term demisexuality. It is sort of a sexuality that's covered by a broad spectrum of asexuality. There's a big sort of ace community around this. That's what they call themselves the aces. But today I'm joined with Yo Samdi Sam from the very popular YouTube channel. She does a lot of videos on autism and she's in the video on demisexuality as well. So how are you today Sam? Hi I'm doing alright thank you. Yeah we're still sort of partially in lockdown over here in the Netherlands so yeah probably about the same as you guys over in the UK just getting a bit sick of it now. I understand that. Whereabouts are you from in the Netherlands then? Well I'm British but about seven years ago now we moved over to the Netherlands to, that sounds cliche, start a new life, not really. We moved over because we didn't like living in London anymore for various reasons and we thought we'd make a go of it and here we are seven years later. That's very cool. I've always thought about moving over to the Netherlands because one of my good friends from university sort of did one of her years abroad in England. We sort of met at Manchester Uni and she lives in Amsterdam. Me and my friend went over to visit her. It sort of stayed and saw the sights and the museums and stuff and it was just such a nice place. It was so quiet, everywhere it was clean, it was really nice. I wouldn't say that Amsterdam is the most quiet city, it's rather touristy and certain parts of the Netherlands are very densely populated but it's always kind of a short drive out, you can get to nature which is really nice. Well I guess my experience with the Netherlands has been Amsterdam and Rotterdam but the place that my friend lives is sort of on the outskirts of the city so it wasn't around the sort of touristy places which was quite nice. Yeah it's a very chill country I have to say. Yeah and the people are very nice as well I've found. Maybe that's just the the tourist mindset that I had on but did you seem to be quite chilled? Yeah I think so. I think the Dutch are a very kind of a pragmatic people you know sort of no nonsense, very direct which it can be good, it can be bad, it can come off a little bit abrupt when you are British and you kind of been brought up. Well I wouldn't say mincing your words but there's a certain way to sound polite in the UK right and that's not how you do it in the Netherlands. We don't have any of our delicate sensibilities. Exactly it's just get right to the point you know say what you think which is refreshing but you know as an autistic person I grew up with one set of rules the UK way of doing things so it's been quite hard for me to adjust even though I appreciate the directness it's still a bit like are you sure they're not being rude to me? I can understand that. I spent a little bit of time abroad in Thailand and they're sort of known to be the land of smiles and the very sort of they take politeness to a new level which I think because I'm from like the north of England obviously there's sort of social rules and stuff for a little bit more I guess I guess more direct and more to the point and all that whereas in Thailand you're not supposed to talk about certain types of things and you know it's you know like anything to do with talking about like the Kings or the Royalty or they've got a very big culture of respect over there and I find that quite hard to adjust to I think. Yeah I mean any kind of cultural difference is I don't know on one hand I've traveled quite a lot and so I find that I'm quite sort of open-minded in some ways but it's very hard to actually adjust your own mindset it's one thing being open-minded and respecting people but then living there or sort of being told to adjust your mindset like that is something else and it's actually quite a bit harder than I thought.  Absolutely yeah and I mean there are lots of people who live here who just they stay in the expat community and that's kind of like their bubble especially in Amsterdam because English is an official second language of Amsterdam the city so you know I think 60% of residents are not much. 60%? Yeah so exactly so as you can imagine there's a very big expat community and it's sort of like an expat bubble in some ways which is sort of good and bad in a variety of ways. Would you like to give us a little bit of a background into who you are and what you do as a job and a little bit about your YouTube channel? Absolutely yep my name is Sam, 34 years old every year it takes me a little bit longer to do the maths on that one and yeah I'm British and moved over to the Netherlands and so about just over a year ago I decided to start up a YouTube channel after I was diagnosed with autism when I was 33 and so basically I started my YouTube channel kind of as a way to process my diagnosis because when you get diagnosed later in life you sort of have to go back over every memory you've had and you see it in a different light so I was kind of the first video that I uploaded was about my diagnosis and kind of like it was very stream of consciousness just me kind of thinking about all the ways that autism has impacted my life and I didn't even realise it and then so I was doing I always just wanted to do a YouTube channel because I thought it would be fun to be honest and so I was doing a few videos here and there and then a few months in I was just getting a really great response to the videos that I did on autism so I kind of doubled down on that and so it took about like six months before my channel just really started growing and then last year I mean last December it was just it was it was insane you know I think I got like 8,000 subscribers in a month or something and so it's just kind of kept on climbing since then which is great but I mean I can imagine and your YouTube channel is currently at 31.3 thousand subscribers and 1.66 million views in total how many 1.6 yeah yeah it's um yeah it's sort of like I really like analytics I'm a kind of numbers and patterns person but sometimes you get very disconnected from from what that means in terms of because I'm still just doing exactly the same thing I did when I started you know I make my video every week I put it online it's like nothing's changed but all of a sudden I have you know stadiums of people watching which is a crazy isn't it right I mean I can't I can't emphasize massively with that I think my I think I think it does get to a point where you you get to a certain level of numbers and it just becomes normalized I guess yeah and it's also meaningless it's like you know I would get a thousand views and I'm like okay but what is that what is that so it's it's a very kind of strange place to be you know it's not like if you have I don't know if you're an actor or something and you have a TV show that as well and then people recognize you on the streets it's it's kind of different because your life doesn't change that much and yet maybe sometime like so I post in Facebook groups or something even unrelated to autism and sometimes someone be like oh my gosh I love your channel I'm like oh shoot I guess I should have a fake Facebook profile so yeah it's it's weird and it's also kind of weird because I never really set out for fame fame is not something that I'm aggressively pursuing necessarily but it does give me an opportunity to make a difference and it gives me an opportunity to change the narrative around autism which I think is the work that's keeping me going because there's only there's only so much I can keep talking about myself and my experiences and my diaries from when I was a teenager you know it it's gonna get boring and it's it's not what's important is is my journey my journey is a part of it it's part of the the reason why I got here but but now that I'm here it's more like you know there are so many things that I want to change in the way that the wider public sees autism and autistic people and that's not just it's not just about me that's about the autistic community or not just the community but autistic people autistic adults and children yeah I completely I completely get that like I think I think one of the sort of the motives of me starting the podcast is I'm trying to like compile all these and sort of amazing amazing people like yourself to be honest and and get everyone together and have a little bit of a discussion on that stuff it's it's very hard to break into the mainstream media about these things as I've experienced recently about sort of promoting my recent documentary yeah I mean I think people think that autism is just such a minority and not many people are interested in it actually but you know I talked to when I talked to people well you know before lockdown out and about or something and they're so oh what do you do and then I explain about the YouTube channel everybody I talked to are like oh well my little brother's autistic or I have a cousin who's autistic like everybody knows somebody really who's autistic and so you think well why isn't this being shown on on mainstream media what is it about autism that makes people think that you know we should just be ignored when autistic people are some of the strongest most interesting people around I think there is sort of a rhetoric in the media that autism is all about children and people in care and stuff like that and I think a lot of the stuff that's on TV and a lot of the sort of newscasts are sort of like either either from a sympathy angle or from a sort of feel-good story angle it's never about like just getting people down and chatting about some of some of the many issues that face the autistic community and I think the problem with people like me and I'll make an assumption people like you who are vocal about autism is that we don't fit there they're preconceived ideas about autistic people so that's like we can't be real autistic people they want to meet real autistic people you know like the ones in care homes and it's like okay we are different for sure but me talking about autistic experiences that's not in validating that's including and sure they have they have struggles that I don't have for example you know being less able to talk maybe fluently maybe at all but the their autistic identity is still it's still that and they have needs which are similar if not exactly the same so really I think it's just it's a way of silencing autistic voices because well you're too high functioning we don't we don't want to talk to someone like you because you don't have any problems it's diminishing my autism which as I'm starting to the more I talk about it the more I realize how much it has impacted my life my ability to get a job my ability to maintain friendships and and things like that so it makes me it makes me pretty angry when when they try to separate into well you are one of the the high functioning autistics and these people that they're in they're in a home because it's like okay well what if I hadn't had my husband around to support me in my 20s when I had you know my mental health wasn't good in my 20s if I hadn't had someone like that I I don't know I could have ended up in an institution it's sort of like well you know I'm an atheist but like but for the grace of God there but for the grace of God go I you know like I I could have ended up in different situations and I really think it was luck and the support of the people around me and privilege in a lot of ways that's meant that I'm able now to be seen as high functioning but that's not my autism isn't high functioning it's it's just I'm lucky I guess I guess that's the root of it I think there is definitely a a large aspect of sort of growing up in the in the right environment having supportive people around you whether it's at home or at school and also like I think because because of the statistics around sort of workplaces and pretty much every single sort of social environment it can be hard for autistic people to sort of go through go through those systems without any support I suppose and I think one of the the main things that I've seen from from doing YouTube in and podcasting and all that kind of stuff is that there are a very significant amount of people who don't have that and have grown up in in quite toxic and difficult environments and I think that those those are the people that need the sort of things that we're trying to push I mean policies and stuff that we're trying to push into society the most it's not for for example I mean some it's not it could be for me and you and for everybody in the autistic community but I feel it's mostly for those people who don't really have a voice and don't really have like the confidence and and all of that it really breaks my heart to see comments you know from people who are really finding it tough so yeah you said that you were diagnosed quite late in your life and that you sort of look back on your memories and sort of delved into that a little bit and tried to process them could you give us some examples of the type of thing that you did want once you got a diagnosis well it wasn't really sort of an active process my brain just I am probably I'm on the fence about getting a diagnosis but I most likely have ADHD is sort of inattentive type and so my brain would just be like hey remember that time in school when you went absolutely and you swear on the show or well you know when I you can use light you can use light words you know hell and down I will use them but you know basically I had a meltdown but I didn't know it was a meltdown so it's just like remember when you were in school and you were in the queue for or you were trying to get into lunch early and that that you know the teacher wouldn't let you in and you basically just had a complete meltdown and got into trouble that was a meltdown that was an autistic meltdown and so instead of thinking why did I act that way why am I like this I don't understand myself I just I just snapped out of nowhere that's how it seemed to me at the time but looking back on it I can see okay well I was hungry and my blood sugar level was probably low at the time and I was in the cafeteria which had fluorescent lights and lots of noise and so it's that's just one example of the way that you know my brain throws me up a memory from my past and goes hey what about this memory that you didn't understand at the time what do you think about that now and I go hmm okay well through the lens of autism these things make sense they didn't make sense back then and that was why it was so hard growing up undiagnosed because life didn't make sense to me I didn't make sense to me and it's only now that I can put things together and and and look back and and see that I acted completely in some ways completely rationally in every situation as to how you would expect an autistic person an autistic person to react in those situations I think like my my obviously my experience is a little bit different because I was diagnosed about ten years sorry I mean it was wasn't early per se and in comparison to some of the people that I know who sort of diagnosed when they were like four five or six but throughout secondary school I guess knowing that I was autistic gave a little bit of a understanding to sort of my anxiety and meltdowns and stuff I think most of the other windows gonna say you torturing a cat or something it's going crazy that doesn't go on for too much too long what was it gonna say yeah I think most of the the things that I sort of reflected back on was the sort of nuanced sort of differences that I had during school so like in social interactions and situations where I was relatively quite confused and and and all that it was I think a lot of the sort of looking back on things and reflecting was after I learnt more about autism in my adult life and then obviously look back on my past and dissected the issues that I had yeah well that's the thing if just because you get a diagnosis as a child or as a teenager doesn't necessarily mean that you will understand or learn much or much good information about autism and that's something that you kind of have your left left to your end of ices almost don't you yeah well it's it's like it's hard to learn about autism when you when you've got when you're in school because it's like for out school you you're constantly trying to analyse situations and make sure that you're safe and you've got a study and you've got the whole routine of school and then after school you're sort of drained and your batteries empty so it's it's like it gives no time for you to actually look back on things and reflect but you know in adulthood I guess when I started going to uni and stuff I had a little bit more time to think about stuff and so reflect on things which was quite helpful I think so from our previous emails you told me that you identified as being a demisexual as I said a lot of listeners maybe you know that may be quite a new term for them could you explain what it is and how you came to realise that you were demisexual it's only something that I've heard about relatively recently and I think I probably I probably came across a YouTube video I find YouTube has been very the algorithm has been very helpful in offering me interesting videos related to my own life but basically Demi Demi sexual Demi means half so you can think of it as kind of like halfway onto the asexual spectrum although I wouldn't say that I am asexual so what it essentially means is that it takes you a long time to develop sexual attract sexual attraction to a person you might not do it very often it might be just a handful of people in your life that you've ever been sexually attracted to and it's usually after having a very close bond developing a very close bond or friendship with someone so the whole kind of dating setup is not very conducive to allowing demisexual people to really develop good relationships because it's not that's not the right situation you know a lot of people will go out on dates with someone go oh yeah I found I found them pretty attractive and they were and and for me I just I didn't have that experience so it was actually quite difficult not knowing this part about me growing up because I basically spent I don't know 15 years thinking that there was something wrong with me and I might have heard about asexuality but that seemed like something very different from from what I was feeling which was just it just was the very had to be very particular and very right for me to to feel that kind of sexual attraction and the thing about demisexuality is it doesn't it's got nothing to do with whether you're attracted to men or women you can be gay lesbian bisexual or straight and be demisexual and you know it's also not got anything to do with your gender identity so it's kind of something that that is more about how you experience sexual attraction to anyone more than about who it's who it's to and I know and obviously demisexuals vary you know we're not we're not all the same I'm not deeply embedded I don't think there is I don't know if there's much of a demi community but I've met a lot of autistic people who are also demisexual I guess we kind of express the same is bafflement a word bafflement we're all a bit yeah confused at how people you know because society especially these days the culture is very much like you know this well tinder culture or like reality shows like everybody's kind of sleeping with everybody and getting in their pants immediately and and the thing is though like I spent a long time like I wanted to do that it wasn't that I had a moral objection that's the thing that people often don't understand this isn't about like oh you're just a classy lady or something like I'm really not a classy lady this isn't about that it's just I don't I don't feel that until something much more profound has happened and that's not saying that I'm kind of like better than anyone or anything like that it's just something that I don't feel until a particular point and I may never feel that towards most people I mean I could probably count on I don't know one or two hands the amount of people that I've actually been really genuinely attracted to and that's including celebrities you know like people when I was especially when I was young actually no Leonardo DiCaprio was my very first crush but like I still don't think I felt sexual attraction towards him I just thought I really liked him you know but so and and I think most teenage girls especially they will feel a level of sexual attraction towards actors celebrities or something and I just sort of didn't with with a few exceptions and I mean now I'm going on to my mid 30s and I still I'm not racking up the number of men that I'm that I've ever been attracted to it's kind of still a very very small number luckily one of those is my husband luckily family's I the reason why I got in contact contact with you and wanted to talk about them these sexualities because when I was in in Thailand I saw I was introduced to asexuality because I think that there was a point of which because when we're in Thailand obviously we were doing research and we were doing work and stuff but sort of on the the off weeks you know when we had some time a lot of my friends were sort of very much into like the party kind of side to life I guess so it so it I did sort of go out quite a lot and I was just confused because I've had this this thing that that has happened a few times sort of going on so I'm nice out and stuff and I really don't feel any any need or want to don't engage with anybody in that way or at least you know I didn't at those times and it's and my friends sort of made quite a lot of comments about it as like why are you doing anything with this this girl like she's attracted to you in this way or whatever and I don't know it just it just sort of puzzled me a bit so I sort of did a little bit more reading into it into asexuality and stuff and I thought hey you know maybe I'm asexual and then obviously I read sort of the ace spectrum and had a look at what that was about and demisexuality seemed to be quite sort of congruent with with my mindset on these types of things I guess it sort of goes up and down I guess like and I never feel the need to just you know have any sort of relations in that way with with strangers but you know that the sort of baseline attraction that I could have was somebody it was up to a limit you know like I needed to have some sort of talk I needed to talk to them and develop some form of bond or connection with them before having any any types of those feelings I mean for me it's it it was very much like that but I think to the extreme I mean this isn't just about not wanting to I don't know be with strangers because I can completely understand that majority of the people probably aren't like that but but it's even you know you dated someone for a few months and maybe you've even been intimate with them but you still don't feel anything and they they're the ones one of the few people that you can stand then it starts to be like okay well is there a part of me that I'm not understanding fully because I think that's the difficult bit is is you're kind of viewing things through society's lens of how appropriate your feelings are and how appropriate your your dating world is and you get a lot of mixed messages from society especially as a woman you know it's like you know be available but not too available and that that's a that's a fine line but in terms of you know your feelings it's like okay well you date someone you get to know them a little bit you date them for a few months and and then at that point you know you can you can move forward with your relationship but what happens if you just never feel that way it really starts to make you think even though you want a relationship it makes you feel very different and some of the comments I did do a video on this last year and and I thought I explained it quite well because I notice a big difference between the way that me and my peers were I mean I had some friends and they they would go from relationship to relationship kind of thing you know the serial what are they called serial monogamous and I just thought where are you finding all these people that you like this much you know how can you be attracted to all these people I just I couldn't get I I don't understand it and even though the people I liked it was never like never really super attracted to them until and it wasn't really just like oh you have to get to know them a little bit it's it's more than that it was like I have to have a really deep you know what's the opposite of superficial like a profound connection like we we had to have delved into the intricacies of our own minds and connected in that way and have be completely understood and have these sort of experiences and as you can imagine that comes across a little bit intense when you are on the dating scene so I probably probably scared some people off in my time I guess it is it is very much like a generational thing you know with the sort of cultures and stuff because I'm I'm 23 so I'm a little bit I'm a little bit younger and I think you know as as more generations are coming up it's it feels very much like everything's getting a lot more sexualized I guess it is it is difficult especially with dating I wouldn't I don't think I'd class class myself as a as a demisexual I think there are aspects of me that would lead me to you know maybe not engage with the norm I guess with dating but then that's kind of you reach the intersection of sort of sexuality and autism in a way because so much of dating behavior and social norms ties into into autism or or asperges I don't actually know how you refer to yourself I'm sorry I should have asked no it's fine I usually refer to myself as being autistic really but you know that that intersection of how you relate to people that you're attracted to and the kind of the socially appropriate way to go about that I think that that that sexuality and autism overlap so much and and I think possibly that's why you see so many autistic people who are LGBT plus or you know gender non-conforming or something like that because what other people do isn't as important to us doing things the set that certain way isn't as important yes yeah I definitely think we're more of the type to figure out the social rules and what we're comfortable with rather than sort of trying to push ourselves to adjust to something that we don't understand or don't believe in I think there is a lot of aspects to that just to give give everybody idea of what the sort of the asexuality spectrum is about it's Pete someone can be asexual but still want a romantic relationship with somebody and someone can be sexual but not want a romantic relationship with somebody and that's it's sort of like a from what I've seen it's sort of like a grid so like you've got one line sort of an XY axis kind of thing so you've got you've got these terms a romantic and asexual and depending on what what you feel and what you want to do and you can sort of fall anywhere on that sort of spectrum there's there's a lot of terms and I think if I was to properly sort of go through all of them there are like there are things like gray sexual, lift sexual, ace flux or recipro sexual yeah from from the statistics and stuff that I've looked at it does seem that there is quite a high link between sort of falling somewhere on the asexuality spectrum and autism from what I've seen and why do you think that is I think that a part of it might also be to do with your preference for touch and physical contact you know autistic people famously don't like hugs I actually do like hugs but they've got to be really tight ones I hate these sort of like little what are they called well you know like the wet fish yeah that sort of thing and and so if you are autistic and like let's say I don't know picky about the way that you touch that's that's going to have an impact on on your sexuality and and all that and and so it's kind of it's very hard to in your own mind sort through okay well is this a preference that I don't like being touched is this sort of neurological or is it cultural or is it just my sort of hardwired sexuality is sexuality hardwired I don't I don't necessarily think so for me to to enjoy being touched by someone I have to be close to the person so not just in a sort of sexual way but just you know you know how some people are just when they talk to you they touch your arm or something I really don't like that it really you can't imagine anybody doing that to like a tall muscular man I think but they do it to me they do it to me yeah I'm six foot three and but they still they still do it especially when they know that I'm autistic which is a little bit of a difficulty I think like a lot of people just sort of something that I came across on Instagram and saying that when autistic people are younger people view them as being very mature a further age but as we get older people for some reason viewers has been immature no that's no that's totally it and I was exactly the same like around my peers at school I was just like why you guys being so immature like this like why do you need to act like this and now baboons exactly and now when I spend time with people my age I'm like oh my god guys like how have you managed to age so much like mentally age because I still sort of now I feel more like a teenager than I did when I was a teenager it's sort of like a psychological Benjamin Button or something my dad makes a lot of jokes about Benjamin Button so that's just tickled me yeah do you know what it actually said in my I find it really funny how this was in my diagnostic report you know that they give you when they say congratulations you're autistic it was just like she looks somewhat younger than her than her age I'm like why is that relevant it's not like I was wearing I don't know I don't even know what young people wear these days but like you know I was I felt like I was dressing pretty normally I don't know what warranted and this was before I even had pink hair yeah so yeah I think there is something about autistic people seeming young but I think it's also like we we don't we're not bound by social confines in in what's appropriate to act and oh now you're now you're a mother you need to cut your hair a certain way and and look like the rest of the mums so yeah it's kind of like a bit more free I suppose free to do whatever because I'm not gonna fit in anyway so why not have pink hair I get that I get that I do I never feel a need to dress for my age I just if I see something that I like or a look that I like then I'll I'll try and achieve that look or I'll try and buy those clothes that suit my personality the most it's never ooh should I really be wearing this and a little bit too you know too old or too young to all of the 23 oh my goodness just you wait mr oh but back to your original question about talking about like why do you think that there is an intersection between sort of the asexuality and and autism I think also I don't know if you've heard the term alexa alexa thymia yeah which is the difficulty understanding the motion exactly so it's kind of like you don't recognize or understand your own emotions like you if you know you're feeling something but you can't quite label it like you don't know who you're feeling sad or whatever and then that's pretty common for autistic people and I think that that that contributes that contributes if you're used to kind of an overly analytical look at your own feelings something like sexual attraction to somebody it's very hard to analyze that one isn't it I guess yeah as well even even more so in the first instant yeah I you have to feel it even now it's not something that you have to feel it to an intensity yeah like it has to be I found that I don't I find it very difficult to sort of pick up those background emotions it has to be extremely sort of intense and and strong for me to notice them I guess but this is the thing even though when I first met my husband I barely noticed him because I'm sure he'll appreciate this but you know it was in a crowded a crowded place there were lots of people that it was noisy there was so much going on so I met him but it was like I I didn't have enough concentration maybe it's the right words you know it's like yeah because I'm so sensitive to my surroundings in that way to noise and to visual visual noise as well you know like I'm noticing the details on people shirts or buttons or the way that they've done their hair or something like that like my attention is all over the place in in these situations so I mean gosh when did I meet I met my husband in in October and we didn't start going out until the following July I think so you you're sort of quite good friends for a while yeah I mean well it was mostly it was mostly kind of online because we weren't living in the same city but you know but but in that point we we had got to know each other to quite a deep level you know we had been talking on you probably don't remember this I don't know but MSN messenger was the thing back in the day you know before before I didn't even know what people do on these days snapchat yeah well that's yeah exactly so we you know we'd been talking pretty much every day and and so we we knew each other quite well and we became very very close and and so actually our first date we went on holiday together which sounds ridiculous it's just like hey should we just go on holiday together okay it was so it was basically just like we got to the point we we saw who the other person really was and then we went on holiday and I was like well don't try any funny business you know let's we need a twin room for sure but yeah it was only on that holiday that and you know I it was just just the two of us there wasn't a lot of distraction and then I was like oh I really like him and everyone was like yeah didn't you know no I didn't I really didn't I I thought I thought he was really really cool but then it was only after I'd had that experience being on a holiday it was just the two of us and and it was like it was like something just clicked in my head and I was like I really like him it's almost like a trigger moment you know that helps you realize and I think a lot of that is related to alexa thymia not understanding the relationship between you know your feelings and then being able to put a put a label on yeah I get that I've tried to explain sort of the emotions and stuff and I find it quite difficult to there's no sort of standard in my head to what point you know what level of intimacy I'm I mean it just it seems to my level of intimacy seems to progress very very very cautiously and slowly because it's like I'm not sure what I feel and then I'm not sure you know I have to sort of analytically analyze and think about all the good good characteristics and the the bonding moments that we have and then sort of sort of approach it in a little bit of like a scientific method kind of definitely I totally do that as well and it does make me feel a little bit like a little bit like sort of like a robot I guess yeah but it's it's not like I don't feel those things it's just that and I can't perceive them in an enough clarity to act on them in sort of like an instant I guess well I guess that that sort of links into sort of like the next question and because of that sort of snap snap decisions and sort of being romantically impulsive what are the the most common problems that face people who are demisexual in the dating arena well I mean I think number one problem is that it's not a very widely heard of or commonly used term and I think not knowing that about me was the hardest thing because I was trying to make myself be normal as as to what I thought it would be and of course this ties in so much with with my feelings about not knowing I was autistic as well but not knowing that demisexuality ended as a teenager I probably I don't think I knew anything about asexuality and so looking for explanations of why you're not like everybody else this is from a sort of dating perspective and I had I had some friends at school who were gay and they were kind of going through that and I was like am I am I a lesbian because I don't feel attracted to to most men and of course it never occurred to me that to be a lesbian you have to be attracted to women instead but it was like but I'm not attracted to men does that make me gay it was a very well you know the 90s was like there's still quite a lot of homophobia even if it's not quite so overt but definitely growing up with with like you know you're so gay was an insult and of course now that insult is you're so autistic which is great isn't it you know we've really moved on as a society but sorry what's the question the the things that demisexuality struggle with I think dating arena dating in general I mean like even if you know that you're that you're demi it's it's very hard for people to other people to understand that I mean the comments that I get on that video are just like you're completely normal this is just what women are like and I wonder if it's like maybe like in cells making some of these comments this is what women are like no women want sex and you know it's like well maybe not if you like that but it's amazing the amount of people who don't believe me when I'm like this is the term that has described to me it's described why I'm completely different to everybody else and people turn around and go well you're just like everybody else and I'm going no no no I'm I'm not this is what I'm trying to tell you you know so it's it's very frustrating because people don't think it's a real thing and it's just like you know there is there's no with sexuality it's an identity thing so so people have to take your word for it and people have to believe you and people find that very hard even with an autism diagnosis I still got people telling me I'm not autistic and I'm like okay but so so how on earth should I prove this to you how would you even prove that you are demisexual to someone I don't I don't even know but but it's me telling you my experience and rather than saying oh I just want to be special I want a special word for what I am it's like well okay it's maybe not very widely understood but this is a term that is the closest that I've come to explaining how I feel and my experience with with dating and with you know sexual attraction and stuff like that so it's it's very I think society makes makes it very hard and it would have been really helpful to have understood this when I was single and when I was sort of dating or trying to because dating never went well for me as you can imagine being undiagnosed autistic and of course I didn't know why which made it so much harder because you know dating culture these days even in the last well pretty much since the advent of online dating things have really changed to be much more fast-paced and kind of like throwaway yeah yeah people have got a lot more opportunities to talk to people and to date people so it's like if if they don't reach this impossible impossibly high threshold of what they need to be a connection or a spark or something in the first date them they're just gonna look for someone else they're not gonna sort of give you the time to get to know you rather than exactly making a snap decision yeah and I think this is obviously this this impacts autistic people as well because I mean I'm unless I meet someone that I have an absolute immediate connection and spark with and those are usually actually also autistic and ADHD people it really it takes me a long time to open up to people and and so for a lot of my my well especially early 20s you know I was masking so heavily so I was kind of like okay who do you want me to be you know spending all my energy trying to mask trying to be the person that I thought I was supposed to be to be liked and to be accepted and it just got it got me nowhere you know I didn't I wouldn't even say I had failed relationships I failure to launch was really the the problem I had I never got anywhere with with anyone really apart from my husband so it's just as well I did I suppose looking back on it bit depressing in any situation where you are the minority in a certain mindset it's gonna be more difficult to find people who are like minded and or at least at least open minded enough to listen to you because I think like well one of the questions that I did want to ask you was as we said like people don't think some people don't think demisexuality should be a thing because I mean one of the arguments that I've seen a lot is that it's not too dissimilar to having a low sex drive which I don't agree with obviously no but what are your thoughts on these comments well having a low sex drive is completely different to being to only being sexually attracted to a small amount of people because if you're with that right person you can have a very high sex drive because you are attracted to them I mean you could also have a low sex drive and be demisexual but the two things are completely separate and so yeah I don't know I mean obviously I spend a lot of time kind of analyzing and thinking about things and there are some people who may not have even thought that being sexually attracted to people in some way is kind of distinct from having a sex drive of your own but I think that's the same with with asexual people is that they do have sex sometimes you know and so people find that very difficult to kind of understand and so I think maybe just to understand it people need to stop trying to make everything fit neatly and just listen to people about their own experiences you know because like I said I well I cannot possibly speak for every demisexuals preferences or anything like that we're all different we might have things in common but at the end of the day we're all going to experience demisexuality slightly differently so you can get an idea of what it's about but there might be some demisexuals with a low sex drive for sure or with a high sex drive and so it's yeah it's difficult to talk about I don't I don't normally talk about sexuality a lot because I'm so busy talking about autism you know but it's it's definitely interesting and it's and it's to be autistic you go through a diagnosis process and you get that kind of stamp of approval which isn't enough for somebody some people but it's still there and yeah everything to do with sexuality is completely self-reported there is no there's no test for sexuality is there apart from maybe self tests on the internet or so it's it's very much like you just have to listen to people and when people tell you that this is the way they feel or this is the term that that describes how they feel the best then I don't know believe them I guess well I suppose it's I think a lot a lot of people are very quick to assume that these types of things are you know for example just for sort of saying oh look at me like I'm part of this small minority of people just just trying to trying too hard to try and describe yourself with a term but it's not it's not about that from what I've seen it's just about clarity I guess yeah and understanding understanding yourself and having having a term or a label you know some people are so opposed to labels but learning just learning about the word demisexuality was so empowering for me because it was like oh it's a thing it's not just something that's wrong with me and I never knew how to describe it it's a thing and that's important and that's the same with autism actually because all this time I've been internalizing all of these traits and thinking well I'm desperately bad at this and I'm this and this and this and I'm a horrible person and I'm terrible at this and why can't I do this and that is not good for your mental health but the minute I realized wait a minute this this is autism things started getting better and it's not like things are easy but having exactly you know why and having a term that you can use to describe that to other people is powerful cool just sort of round up what we've talked about would you like to give us sort of three main points or or things that you want people to take away from the podcast right three main points so demisexuality is is really a term for having a limited amount of sexual attraction to people and something that only develops as as we've we've said after going through a significant bonding or after becoming extremely close to them it's a thing it's a real thing and you can tell me that this is how all people are but this is not how people are otherwise they would behave differently so it is it's a real thing yes this is my lived experience um that's two things um and I guess just you know if if you think oh my gosh this sounds like you just you know go down the research rabbit hole and and look into the the ace spectrum and maybe look into aromantic if that if you think that sounds like you um you know research demisexuality just read about it until you find something that that fits because if you've always felt like everybody else is kind of different and you don't know why there's there's probably a term for it on the internet somewhere these days yes that's the joy of living in 2020 there aren't many joys to 2020 but seriously everything's on the internet now have you got a uh last point for us um check out my youtube channel oh yes of course yeah I don't talk much about demisexuality I've done I've done one video but it's mostly about autism uh neurodiversity uh I'll be doing a little bit more on executive functioning in the next few months I've got a little mini series planned for that and I'm also sort of well I I I I constantly tell people it's okay to self identify as autistic and and I'm sort of on the fence about whether it's okay for me to do that with ADHD so I'm kind of in the middle of deciding whether I want to pursue a diagnosis of ADHD as well so I'm hoping to do some content about that in the future because that's a very interesting one that the intersection of autism and ADHD so your your youtube channel is yo samdi sam sam yes you can probably type in a misspelling of it and it will will still come up on youtube um yeah that's actually it's a a childhood nickname of mine I like it and you have your social medias as well uh yeah I'm on instagram at yo samdi sam and I kind of do twitter but um not so much there's I don't pay much interesting stuff on there so I'm just like don't follow me on twitter it's boring but yeah I definitely think you should go check out um sam's uh youtube channel it's it's it's grown it's grown very very quickly and it's there's a lot of good videos on uh about all sorts of different topics and as uh as you said sam like put one out every week yep yeah I try to I try to get one out weekly and then I do live streams every month or so and uh and yeah it's a it's a really nice little community of of viewers I mean people say that youtube can be very toxic and that is the case you know on the comments on on my larger videos but but the core the core community is just uh really great um so I I just I just love like chatting to chatting to viewers and and stuff like that so yeah I hope that your listeners will become my my listeners um yeah you steal them over exactly well they can listen to listen to both of us exactly yeah okay let's let's go for the last question which is always a an interesting one um what does autism mean to you sam to me autism is about having a different perspective on the world from from the majority and that comes from a neurological difference but your perceptions of the world inform everything we we are all you know meets brains encased in meat sacks uh trying to sense our way through life aren't we and some of us the autistic ones are just sensing things a little bit differently and and I think from a very basic level our perception through our senses informs a lot of our social behaviors and and everything else so for me it's it's like very autism is like the the very basic layer of of who I am and and all of my other behavior comes out of that and being autistic in a majority neurotypical world sort of you develop coping mechanisms um and and so on so I hope that was meat sack I like that term to describe my body yeah yeah me too you seem to you seem to um to like a lot of uh those sort of um terms I picked up on something on your demisexuality video which is um monkey lust monkey lust yeah that's how it feels yeah for everyone else I absolutely I love that it's great monkey lust but this is the thing you know growing up as a teenager in my in my 20s that's that's how it seemed like everyone was to me until I understood that I was actually different you've got it you've got to sort of take those um um those things and make me a little bit humorous don't you or else you'd sort of get caught up when um sort of the more negative aspects of it I guess oh definitely yeah you can you can really feel sorry for yourself being autistic and demisexual like there is room for that but um I think humor humor is a coping mechanism to me so uh that's been the way that I've made sense of it all has been through humor well thank you for listening to us you meat sacks brainy brainy meat sacks you wonderful meat sacks with a lovely little neurological difference or just a general uh neurology um if you want to check out the 40 other podcasts you can find it on Spotify Enka and Apple podcasts uh we think I've got about I think up up until this point I've done about 18 episodes so we've got a lot more to come out and this is probably going to be going out a little bit later but um you can also check out my youtube channel Aspergers growth on youtube of course and some of my social medias which is twitter facebook and instagram at Aspergers growth and of course the Aspergers society documentary which has recently got quite quite a lot of views and I'm very happy with the support and the feedback that the autistic community is is giving me and it's got a website www.aspergersinsight.com go check it out if you were fancy looking at some behind the scenes footage thank you very much for coming onto the podcast Sam thank you for having me appreciate it no it's been fun have you enjoyed have you enjoyed it yeah yeah it's always uh it's always nice to chat with people because you know it's it's gets a little lonely doing youtube to be honest just talking to a camera so it's it's always nice to to talk to other people who kind of do other creative things with regards to with regards to autism looking forward to watching the documentary I actually didn't uh didn't get a chance to see it yet so yeah I'd be very um eager to see what your your thoughts of it is thank you everybody for listening to us ramble about autism it's always a very therapeutic for myself and I hope that you've got something out of this episode have a great day and I'll see you later meet sacks yeah bye meet sacks love you guys ready bye


The study aimed to develop a wearable robotic limb system to assist individuals with upper limb motor disorders due to stroke. The system utilized a hybrid control approach combining motor imagery, MI, and object detection to provide assistance for movement and grasping tasks. The MIEEG recognition method based on graph convolutional neural networks, GCN, and gated recurrent units, GRUs, was employed to recognize the subject's intentions from EEG signals. The system was tested offline and online, where the subjects were able to successfully complete the target object grasping tasks within 23 seconds. The results demonstrated that the proposed MIEEG recognition method improved the MI classification accuracy compared to traditional methods, and the SRL system was effective in providing assistance for upper limb tasks in daily life. This article was authored by Zhichuan Tang, Lingtao Zhang, Xiyan Chen, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.


Hello students. I am Bhargesh Deshmukh, Professor of Mechanical Engineering Department at Valshan Institute of Technology, Sola. This session is on design of lever. It is from the course of machine design. At the end of this session, you will be able to design a lever safety valve. Let us check a problem. A lever loaded safety valve is mounted on a boiler to blow off at a pressure of 1.5 megapascal gauge. It is expected that this valve should blow off at a gauge pressure of 1.5 megapascal. The effective diameter of the opening of the valve is 50 millimeter. That means valve diameter is 50. The distance between the fulcrum and the dead weights on the lever is 1000 millimeter. The distance between the fulcrum and the pin connecting valve spindle to the lever is 100 millimeter. The lever and the pin are made of plain carbon steel .38 that is SYT equals 400 Newton per mm square. And the factor of safety is 5. The permissible bearing pressure at the pins in the lever is 25 Newton per mm square. The lever has a rectangular cross section and the ratio of width to thickness is 3 is to 1. Design a suitable lever for the safety valve. Here the rectangular cross section is mentioned and the ratio of width to thickness is given and it is 3 is to 1. We need to design a suitable lever for the safety valve. Now let us see what are the given things. SYT value is 400 Newton per mm square and factor of safety is given as 5. For valve the diameter is 50 millimeter and the valve pressure is 1.5 megapascal. For the lever L1 is 1000, L2 length is 100 millimeter and the cross section D by B equals 3. This is the given value. And for the pin bearing pressure P is 25 Newton per mm square. Let us start with the problem. A lever loaded safety valve. This is the shell or it is the steam space of the boiler. The steam force is exerted upwards. This is a typical valve. The force is exerted upwards. At this fulcrum this lever is allowed to swivel. The effort with the dead weights is applied at the free end. The length of effort from the fulcrum is taken as L1 and the length L2 is the length of the wall spindle to the fulcrum and the cross section is B into B or B by B is the cross section, the rectangular cross section is B. Let us first find out the permissible stresses in the lever. Sigma T we need to calculate the bending stress. Sigma T equals SYT upon FS. SYT is given as 400 and factor of safety is 5. We can calculate the permissible stress 80 Newton per mm square. Then the tau value we know that tau is given by SSY upon FS or it is 0.5 SYT upon FS. As per the maximum shear stress theory we can calculate permissible shear stress equals 40 Newton per mm square. Then we need to calculate what are the forces acting on the lever. We must be very careful about calculating the forces. The wall blows off at a blow off pressure. The force is equal to area pi by 4 d square of the wall multiplied by the blow off pressure. The diameter of the wall is 50 and the blow off pressure is 1.5. The force is around 2945 Newton. The distance L1 and the dead weights P are kept such that when the steam pressure inside the boiler reaches the limiting value the moment F into L2 overcomes the moment P into L1. The limiting moment of forces P and F about the fulcrum F into L1 equals P into L1 or we can calculate the P putting the other values or P comes out to be around 294.52. You can see that this is the force and comparatively what is the effort value. It is around 10 times less than that of the force. This is due to the lever length, lever arm. Continuing with the forces on the lever, the forces acting on the lever we can calculate as the force exerted by the steam reaction will be at the fulcrum place and this is the effort. Distances are 100 and 1000.  The next part is the pin dimension. The forces acting on the lever we know that these are the three forces R, F and P. These are to be used to calculate the pin dimensions. Force F is 2945, force P is around 294 and force R is around 2650 Newton. It is clear that the pin at the point F is subjected to the maximum force. D1 and L1 are the diameter and the length of the pin at F. We need to assume that L1 equals D1. If we assume L1 equals D1, the pin dimensions are obtained as per the bearing concentration. Force F equals bearing pressure multiplied by D1 into L1, which is the projected area of the pin. We know that for bearing concentration we need to take the projected area, which is given by D1 into L1. Therefore, D1 is around 10.85. Let us select some standard value, 12 millimeter. Then checking this pin, as we have designed the pin, we need to check this pin for the shear. Shear stress is given by force upon. As it is a double shear, we need to take two times. The cross section is in the shear pi by 4 D1 square, where D1 is the diameter of the pin. We can solve and get that tau is 13.02 Newton per mm square. This is the induced shear stress, which is well below the permissible shear stress. Therefore, the pin design is safe in shear. We have designed the pin for bending and bearing concentration and we have proven that this pin is safe for shear. The forces on the fulcrum pin, the R, it is less than the force acting on the pin at spindle. Hence we can say that pin dimension at the fulcrum will be slightly less, but you know that. You can think upon this, what is the interchangeability and how interchangeability and parts, part count reduction are related. We have taken diameter of the pin at R equals diameter of the pin at f. Then the dimensions of the lever. A gunmetal bush of 2 millimeter thickness is press fitted at the both pin zone in order to reduce the friction. I D of the boss D1 plus 2 times the thickness. Therefore, it comes out to be 12 plus 4 16. O D of the boss, it is to be taken as 2 times the I D, which is equal to 32 millimeter. We need to calculate the bending moment diagram for the lever. Bending moment will be given by P multiplied by 1000 minus 100 that comes out to be 2650 68 Newton. This is at the point f, the fulcrum point. The given data is lever as a rectangular cross section and the ratio of width to thickness is 3 is to 1 or in other words D equals 3 times B. We can use that and calculate sigma B equals m by z. Use the equation and find out what is B and D. Now the pinhole at the wall spindle makes the lever B. We need to check the bending stress at the pinhole section. The dimensions of the lever are 15 and 45. These are the dimensions. We need to add the boss on both the ends so that there is sufficient strength at the pinhole. The hole for the pin, the cross section is like this 16, 32, 45, 15 and boss increases the overall thickness of the lever becomes 20 at the pin section. Dimensions of the lever and then we can check mB is known, y is half of 45. We can calculate I and then the induced bending stress. It is well below the permissible bending stress and hence again we can state that the design is safe.


The athletes making their way out, that's Robert Miller, the 400 hurdles champion and record holder. The petition also in the lineup, Acania Samuel Francis, the 400 hurdles silver medalist, having won that title a year ago in the Bahamas. Running significantly faster this year though for that silver medal was a terrific performance in a fine, fine race. The athletes making their way out for this one. No qualifying races on the boys side in sprint hurdles. Had qualifying races in the under 17 girls, the under 20 girls, straight final. And now the U17 boys, a straight final as well. 13-49, the record in this one. The Jamaican Caim Carby delivering that in the Bahamas last year. Dwyer, also of Jamaica, will be a serious threat to that record. Has run a window-sisted 13.85, Michael Dwyer, positive 2.4 on that. Here's the full lineup, Acania Samuel Francis of St Kitsa Nevis in Juan Amare Brown, Trinidad and Tobago too. Andrea Wilson, Bahamas in three. Michael Dwyer, Jamaica in four. Tariq Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago in five. Robert Miller of Jamaica in six. Tejon Webb of St Kitsa Nevis in seven. And Sorenne Visson of French Guiana in lane eight. Big moment for these boys. Tariq Vincent of Trinidad and Tobago already has two individual medals at these Curveder games. The bronze in the high jump, silver in the long jump. There is Amare Brown, the second Trinidad and Tobago athlete in the field. Has run 14.40 seconds this season. That was into a strong headwind. Negative 1.8 meters, so does have the ability to go faster. Wind really kicking up. Looks as if it's going against the sprinters now. Regardless of which way the wind is going, it is going to be something for the hoodlers in particular to have to contend with because it does disrupt your rhythm. So because this event really all about rhythm and speed. And you know when you're supposed to be hitting the hood. And the wind is just doing its thing with you forcing you into doing things that you don't necessarily want to. Zabiba Harris pointed out in our track with Gerard Marseille, the technical component of the race so important. Generally across sport when you're technically good, that's when you're able to manage various conditions because your technique is able to bring you through tough moments, tough situations. It's when you have deficiencies in your technical ability that they really start showing up on the severe pressure. There is the Ketishan, Akane Samuel Francis, second in the 400 herders in a personal best, 52.88, won the 400 herders title in the Bahamas last year. Amari Brown of Trinidad and Tobago, 14.40 personal best coming into this. There's the Bahamian, Jacario Wilson, 14.18. Did that at the Bahamian trials. Michael Duar, Jamaica, 14.05 at his best, has gone under 14, but that was wind assisted. Tariq Vincent already has two medals to his credit as the athletes are sent to their marks. Robert Miller, the 400 herders champion and record holder goes in six, Webbson Kitsunivis, seven, and Vasson of French Ghana in lane eight. Off they go. Samuel Francis rose quickly. Vincent is down. The Jamaican, Michael Duar is going well. Duar has the lead chased by the Bahamian, Wilson. Duar and Wilson. Duar gets there to win the gold medal. 13.79 on the clock downstairs. Michael Duar of Jamaica ahead of Jacario Wilson of the Bahamas. And I think the 400 herders champion, Robert Miller, the second Jamaican in the field, got up to take bronze. Confirmation, 13.81 for Michael Duar. And the Jamaicans go back to back to back in the hurdles. That's three from three. Wilson, 13.94 to take the silver for the Bahamas. That's a PB for him, of course, if it's wind eagle. And Robert Miller, fabulous performance in the 400 hurdles. 1.8 the wind we're getting. 13.97 for him, so personal best performances for the top three find race. This man pushed Duar all the way at one stage, seemed as if he might steal the gold medal. But Michael Duar very strong in the closing stages, holding his composure in the key moments of this race. Here's another look at a terrific start. All right, Vincent goes down. Duar clipping a couple of hurdles, midway the race, but holding it together as the Bahamian challenged on his inside. Robert Miller finishing very well, the four hurdles champion. And once again, he gets the better of the petition. Akane Samuel Francis who is just outside the medals in the 110 hurdles he finishes in fourth. Here's confirmation, positive 1.8 meters per second. Duar 13.81. Wilson of the Bahamas, 13.94. Miller of Jamaica, 13.97. The first three with personal best performances. A personal best as well for Samuel Francis of St. Kitsa Nevis, 14.06. Brown of Trinidad and Tobago, 14.20. Wells of St. Kitsa Nevis, 14.54. 15.24 for Bassoin. And Tariq Vincent actually finished the race outside 30 seconds.


And, even if you're raising your heart rate from, let's say your resting heart rate is, I don't know, 65 or 70, here we go. It's Saturday. You know what time it is. Q&A time. Let's see. I'm only going to take questions this week from Twitter and from Facebook. About 40 came in through Twitter this week and about 70 through Facebook. That's plenty to work with and I have not even looked at them ahead of time. I'm just reading them as they come in. Okay. This first one is from Twitter. Shout out to Michael. Thank you, Michael. He asks, and I cannot get to all the questions, so if I don't get to yours, I apologize, but we'll just do our best. Here we go. During your personal training blocks, do you take a weekly rest day? Why or why not? So, Michael, from a mental standpoint, I do not like to take a rest day, like once a week because I love running. But a day off of running for me is a day that feels not unfulfilled, but something's missing. I just love it that much, getting out there and getting the legs moving. It's a nice mental break to just disconnect. That's the mental side, Michael. On the physical side, Arthur Liddyard always talked about a day off is a day where your aerobic metabolism is not being pushed forward. This connects to the notion about junk miles. I don't believe in junk miles unless you're training and putting yourself, like, digging a hole over training syndrome, but as far as junk miles like running for me, like let's say if I'm going out and running 10-minute pace, which is pretty slow pace for me, those are not junk miles. In fact, I think it's great because it's getting my legs moving, meaning my blood is pumping more, and then I can come back home and stretch and get a nice good stretch and foam rolling session in so that hopefully the next day, my legs feel even better because sometimes if I take a day off, my legs actually feel more stiff the next day. And even if you're raising your heart rate from, let's say your resting heart rate is, I don't know, 65 or 70, even if you're raising it just like for me up to 110, that's still a little aerobic benefit that you're getting that day. And I know it's small, but it's still a teeny, tiny benefit. So anyway, Michael, great question. I hope that helps. I don't take days off while I'm training unless, Michael, I'm feeling really, really beat up. If I'm feeling really beat up, I'm really tired or now I do love taking time off after peak races. You all probably know that at this point. Okay, moving on. Oh my goodness. Eden asked, looking back, is there anything you would have done differently when you first started running? Eden, that's a good question. I would say, Eden, I probably would have researched the sport more. Just learn the history of the sports and it's not as popular as baseball or football or soccer or whatever the case may be. There is a nice, long, great, beautiful history of running that is really great to know about because it just gives you a sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself and whether it's the history of the Olympics or history of ultramarathon racing or the history of, yeah, anyway. So I would have done that. More research into our sport on the history side and then on the actual training side, Eden, I would have, you know, I probably would have been a little more patient with my volume growth. So in college, I did make a big jump up and I probably would have gone at it maybe a little more gradually. So instead of jumping up, you know, 30 miles in a 12 month period, I probably would have jumped up 10 to 15 miles over a 12 month period as far as my total volume per week or per month. So good, sorry, per week. So good question, Eden. I hope that helps a little bit. All right, moving on here. Scott asks, have you considered training and pacing with Sage for Houston? You are both going for OTQ. That's from Scott on Twitter. A lot of people are asking about Sage and I. Listen, Sage is busy. He's a coach. He's training full time. He's got his YouTube channel. I got my family. So I don't think we'll really, I don't know, maybe we'll train some day together, but we're both really busy. However, Scott, I do think and I haven't reached out to Sage yet, but I've reached out to some other guys who are planning to run that 518 pace and in Houston. So there's a group developing is how I'll put it. And I haven't contacted Sage directly yet, but I will. So good question from Scott. And I would love to be able to train with him, you know, but even though we only live like an hour apart, it's still, we're still really busy. So anyway, good times here. Okay. Moving on one second. Rocky asks, since you are a Broncos fan, John Elway or Peyton Manning? Rocky, is that even a question? Is that even a question? If you live in Denver, you know, John Elway is basically, is basically God and John Elway right below God. So no, John Elway all the way. Love you Peyton, but nah, John Elway all the way. Okay. Moving on. Let's see. Let's see, see, see. Sorry. One second. Bunny's fiftieth trip asks, how do you get out the door? Matt takes forever to get his mindset correct. I don't know what he's at, what you're referencing. How do I get out the door?  Oh, because I know a mile into the run, it's going to feel so, so good. I ache a little bit. I'm tired. I'm sore. It's cold out that first mile. But after that first mile, it's like, huh, it's freedom out there. It's just freedom. Whether you're listening to music, listening to audio books or just nothing. It's just so nice to disconnect for a little bit and get, get away from this. Right. If you're working full time or whatever, like, you know, this can be a little overwhelming at times right here. So, all right. Moving on. Let's see. Let's see. Oh my goodness. There's a lot. Okay. We're going to jump over to Facebook, actually. Here we go. Um, let's see. What do you think is the best cross training? Cycling, swimming, et cetera. What do you do? Oh gosh. Best cross training. I think for overall body workout, it would definitely have to be swimming. Swimming is really, really hard. Um, I think biking is good, but at the same time, I've heard some runners have actually knee issues. If they jump into biking too quickly or cycling in a gym, because it is like you are putting some good. It's just a different motion. Different muscle groups are being fired. Um, yeah. So anyway, I would probably lean towards, uh, swimming if I had to pick one. That's what we were assigned in college. If we were injured, we were assigned to go to the pool, not to go to, not to go to the bike. Good question. Uh, who was that from? Let's see. Uh, John on Facebook. Okay. Moving on here. Uh, let's see. David asks, I live and train in a hot tropical climate, uh, and we'll be running Tokyo marathon at very cold temperatures. What should I expect? Do you have any preparation advice or advice for the run in general? You should expect to be cold.  You probably get one though in your, uh, welcome packets. Um, get a good warm up in, you know, good two miles and, uh, but you don't want to get your clothes too sweaty. So don't go too fast on your warrant. Like you don't want to start the race with a lot of sweaty clothes on cause then you might really get cold. Um, so you might want to save your singlet and save your blood. Like if you can have someone there in the starting area to help you like, okay, go do your warm up and then just warm the body up and then do a quick change of clothes. Anyway, that's how I would approach it. I know Tokyo last year. Remember the rain? It was kind of crazy. So good luck to you, David. Uh, you got this and yeah, it's on my bucket list as well. Tokyo, that'd be a good one. Okay. Moving on here to, um, let's see. Rick asks, I believe Rick is over in Amsterdam. Right, Rick? What's your favorite 2019 shoe? Hmm. Hmm. Rick, you're putting me on the spot. I got, I must say, Rick, I did get some pretty solid training out of the Carbon X getting ready for Amsterdam, getting ready for, uh, for, for, uh, not Houston for New York. I put some pretty good miles into this shoe and it was, it was basically my long run shoe. Um, it's not quite, um, it's not quite a tempo shoe for me. It's maybe a little bulky, not necessarily heavy. It's just a little bulky. And, but I, anyway, this would be, oh man, I don't know if it's my number one for 2019, but it would definitely be, I'd say a top three. Oh, that's a tough one, Rick. I will make a vlog before 2019 is done for my favorite running shoes. Okay. Moving on here. Um, Brian asked, do you ever run a marathon just for fun? Uh, I have, I've only done two marathons. Yeah, when, when I'm, you know, past the age of 50, I'll probably do a marathon for fun. Right now it's just, if I show up at a starting line, like the competitive juices just get going. There's no way I'm just going to hang back, but good question, Brian. I've never done a marathon just for fun. Um, Aaron asks, how do you find motivation when you're feeling down?  There's stressful situations. Um, whether it's money, whether it's your job, whether it's finals for school. And when I'm feeling like a little overwhelmed motivation, I mean, I always think longterm that helps me a lot rather than like stay in the moments. So thinking longterm about the, the health benefits of getting out the door that day, the health benefits mentally getting out the door that day, I just think like, okay, this is going to help me be a better person if I get out for two miles, three miles. No matter how short it might be.  When we go run, endorphins are released into our body and we always usually feel better at the end of the run. Like it's, if you want to just boil it down to science, um, it's a good thing. It's a good little benefit that we get as runners. And, um, yeah. So that's a tough one. That's a big one. That's a big topic, Aaron, but I hope you, um, can keep getting out the door, even through those tough situations. Keep coming back to this channel.  So good question. A lot of people on the group run today were telling me stories about their challenges and, um, how like the Demor global running community is inspiring them to get out the door and run. So at the end of the day, that is what it's all about here on YouTube. Okay. Lee asks, do you people, do people often overcomplicate running? Should people just go and feel it? Uh, Lee, I would say, um, and then he says too many layers of clothing, too much tech and too much time thinking about it. Just go and run. Lee, I would honestly say, yes, I love simplify. Like why I run is cause it's simple. It doesn't, you, I say it every day almost like you don't have to go to a gym. You don't need a basketball. You don't need hockey pucks. You don't need climbing rope. You don't need a bicycle. You just go run and, um, you know, even this stride foot pod is giving me some trouble. It's not, it's not pairing with my polar watch. It just doesn't want to pair and that's okay. And I'm not going to fight it. Now I'll keep trying, but it's probably going to be another two, three, four days before I have a chance. So Lee, I would say at the end of the day, just go run and let the, let the wind hit you and enjoy the moment. Enjoy once again, getting away from technology, even if it's just for 20 or 30 minutes, cause oh, it can be overwhelming sometimes. So Lee, I love that. I love that notion. Moving on here. Oh my goodness. There's a lot here. Um, let's see. Matthew asks, how do I hydrate during my training sessions? So I'll have a handheld water bottle. A lot of times Matthew, if it's under 15 miles, I usually don't carry anything because I just in the, in the summer, in the summer, the cutoff is usually like 13 to 14 in the winter. It's usually like 16 to 17. If it's over 16 miles, I'll carry like a handheld water bottle or I will wear a hydration vest. Um, yeah, sometimes I'll go out and I'll hide water bottles. If it's a, if it's a loop that is, um, I don't want to carry anything. I'll hide water bottles ahead of time. So anyway, good question from Matthew. Moving on here. Um, Robert asks, how do you deal with nagging pains? They can really be disheartening. Oh, it depends how long they're nagging. Robert, um, if it's, if it's getting worse, you know, maybe go see a doctor or go see a physical therapist. You know, I would say if it's nagging for more than, uh, it depends on the pain level, zero to 10. That's a good scale to work with. Is it a, is it a three? If it's below like a three or four, I usually don't pay attention to it for two. Like it's not going to stop me from running. If it's over, okay, my pain tolerance, I've actually run races before with stress fractures. Now they were really, really, really important races. I won't get into those stories right now. And I wouldn't recommend doing that, but over time, I have learned, even like plantar fasciitis, I've learned the different levels of pain tolerance that I can handle.  I'm trying to be a competitive runner. So I am pushing myself. Like I have a few little niggles right now, uh, Robert, right now, like literally standing here right now. Um, I, I have to be just monitoring like two to five on the pain scale, some little things happening throughout the body, but I know that I can handle it as long as it doesn't get up to like a eight and a half, nine or 10. Um, so anyway, Robert, good question. And I know they can be disheartening. Again, we're here for you. DeMord Global running on Facebook. There's a lot of questions being asked about running injuries. If you want to put out some feelers out there about how to deal with running injuries onward and upward. Here we go. Uh, on Drace asks, can you share your daily training so that we can adapt it to our level on Drace? Um, first of all, so I post my daily training on the blog down in the description. You have to go look for it below every single blog. It's down there. I list the mileage and the pace, but on Drace, I run by feel. If I'm feeling tired, I might run slower. If I'm feeling good, I'll run a little faster. So everything you see in the description below the vlogs is not set in stone. And that's where I, that's how I train. So, but on Drace, I would recommend don't, um, yeah, you can adapt it, but, uh, you got to be careful mimicking other runners training styles because they might be, they may have been running for 20 years or 15 years, and maybe you've only been running for two years. So it's all, everybody's at different stages of their endurance training careers. Like our endurance abilities and our, and our, um, our muscles, our bones, like my bones feel, I feel like my bones are pretty solid right now after so long of running, even though I had a stress reaction this past year. Uh, whereas if you just started running six months ago, you do, you know, you just have to be careful that you don't put too much pounding into the body because your bones are not as, um, as used to it. So anyway, on Drace, good question. Here we go. Moving on, uh, Cindy asks, when is the beard coming back? I used to have a beard, everybody. I, it wasn't exactly a full beard. Good question. I, it's probably not coming back for a long time, Cindy. Maybe if I attempt Nolan's 14 again. Okay. Let me just grab a couple more. Let me grab one more off of Twitter here. Let's see. Um, okay, this is a good one. Okay. Well, there was one. Where is it? Shoot. Hold on. Well, let me find it. Okay. Andrew asks on Twitter. This is a little bit of a controversy. He says, I'll say it. What are your thoughts on the current shoe war potential, uh, impact at the upcoming trials, the marathon trials, uh, for the Olympics are in Atlanta. And so yes, uh, what, what are your thoughts on the current shoe wars, potential impact at the upcoming, upcoming trials in Atlanta, Atlanta, based on the current rules and regulations about shoe technology? Should the, uh, anyway, he goes on to ask about the Alpha fly, the Nike Alpha fly. So if you didn't know, so we got the Nike vapor fly 4% flying it. You've got the Nike next percent. You've got the Hoka Carbon X. So all of these companies are coming out with these, uh, carbon fiber plate running shoes. I'm just going to say it, Andrew. It makes me a little concerned that rumor has it that the Alpha fly has three carbon fiber plates. I don't know if I buy it, but I don't know if I love that. I think there needs to be a balance. Obviously, both of these shoes have, as we figured out together, have one carbon fiber plates. All right, the scientific experiment here, um, and the Alpha fly supposedly has three. And so one of the rules, Andrew, as you probably know, is that the shoe needs to be available to the general public for IAAF regulations and rules, meaning it needs to be easily accessible. I think is how they phrase it. So therefore, as far as I know, the Alpha fly is not going to be available by the Olympic trials, which in my opinion means it shouldn't be used at the Olympic trials. Um, so that would be my opinion, Andrew, and I think it's a great question, um, whereas the next percent, anybody can buy that. Anybody can buy the Carbon X. Same Andrew, the same's go with the, the new Soccany shoe coming out the endorphin. Same goes for that. I don't know when it's being released. So good question. Holy smokes. Big topic. Those are my thoughts. Okay. One, I'll take just a couple more. Um, let's see, uh, let's see. This one is Adidas, Adios, Boston or Nike next percent. Uh, he has a marathon in two weeks and still undecided. So at the end of the day, the runner is doing the work. Never forget that. Like, oh, um, what was, like, I think we can get a little to, um, invested in running shoes. Uh, uh, uh, um, now I did enjoy wearing the next percent in the New York City marathon. Um, I haven't raced a marathon in the Boston, but just keep in mind that yes, I think it was the New York City marathon. The winner in the elite race wore an Adidas shoe. I forget the, I don't know what shoe it was. It wasn't the Boston. I don't remember, but it's not the shoe that is winning the race. That is my point. It's the runner. It's the talent. It's the hard work. And at the end of the day, like, I think if you put too much mental energy into the shoe, um, we can kind of think that this is the miracle drug. And it's not.  Uh, so anyway, that would be my message for you. Um, where the shoe that feels most comfortable and where the shoe that you've used in training, that would be my message, uh, for that, uh, for that question. I hope that helps. Okay. One more from Twitter. How much elevation gain is too much when searching for a half marathon PR course? That is from Abe. I think that's a great question. I would say a hundred feet, maybe 120 feet, because really, really fast marathon courses are about 200 feet of elevation gain and loss. Um, and sometimes there's more loss than gain. So Abe, if you could find a course that's around a hundred feet of elevation gain for half marathon, that's a fast, fast course. So boy, I don't even know. I still need to do more research about half marathon courses because I'm hoping, in fact, um, well, this is not the question of the day, but do you have any recommendations for a half marathon for me? I want to chase down a faster than 106 half marathon in 2020. I've got my eyes on a Brooklyn half marathon in May. But if you have any other ideas, let me know. That'd be amazing. Okay. Hopping over to Facebook for two more, two more. Oh my goodness. Here we go. Um, let's see. Da, da, da, da. Oh man. There's just so many. Let's see. Steve, no, okay. Would you consider shaving your legs for Houston? Listen, some of my old teammates at the University of Colorado used to shave their legs. I've never been a shave my legs kind of guy, even though I get massages to help with my just my training and my massage therapist. I asked her, like, is it easier to massage without hair? And she said, no, it doesn't it doesn't matter to her. So after that, I was like, okay, we're just going to keep the hair on my legs. Uh, so moving on here. Okay. Nuno asks, are you already thinking about the strategy in the Olympic marathon trials in Atlanta? Any gold time? Nuno, I'm not got to get through Houston first. Good question. But I got to focus on Houston. I guess, you know, what is my strategy for Houston? I would say, um, so New York was good. It is 900 feet of vertical gain. It's it's actually a lot more than I realized as far as it's just like New York is tough. It's a tough one. And, um, you know, we're just we're going to pack up. There's going to be a group of guys we're going to pack up. We're going to work together. And I think we will stick to that pace, you know, not 505 a mile, not in New York. It was we were closer to like 522 to 525 a mile in the first half marathon. I was definitely like holding back, but it was probably holding back just like it's really difficult to negative split. So Nuno, my answer would be I don't want to have to I do not want to have to. I don't want to negative split Houston. I want to run faster the first half and then just hold it because it's for me like I know the last three to four miles is going to hurt and to pick up the pace is going to be really difficult. So anyway, I hope that helps. OK, one more, one more. Here we go. Let me just find one. Benji asks if I have done all my long runs on trails this year. Can I translate straight onto road at the same distance in effort or should I cut it down? Benji Dean, I would cut down just a little bit. I would. I think it's very smart to just back it off a little bit for a month, two to four two to four weeks. Just see how the body reacts to the pavement and the concrete. I think it's really smart just to make sure you don't you don't get an injury and especially with all the snow and ice in the northern hemisphere, it's harder to find trails right now, at least in Denver. So I think it's really, really smart. OK, thank you all. That's the Q&A. How many did I answer? I hope that was enough. Oh my goodness, there's a lot. Question of the day. What questions do you have for me for next Saturday's Q&A? OK, ask me anything. I'll come back to this video and I'll pull. I'll try to pull at least 10 questions. It's just a lot. And I try to get to as many as possible. Amazing, amazing. I think that's it. All right, we'll toss it back to a couple other Q&A videos from the last three weeks on the right and the left. There you have it. And I love you guys. As always, hope I'm bringing some value to you through these Q&A videos. See beauty, work hard and love each other. See you tomorrow.


I'd like to talk to you about noise and what noise can do for you. We got a new rule, part 62 that come in effect and I kind of like to talk about noise injuries and stuff.  You can feel it wearing noise. There's no pain.  There's instant pain. With noise there is no pain and you really don't know you're losing your hearing. But I kind of like to talk to you about decibels and also about intensity and what noise can and can't do for you. What decibels is, is the volume of noise, how loud it is. Intensive, there's wavelengths in the noise. I like to demonstrate on a guitar the difference between the two. A lot of people think high pitch noise are worse because it's higher pitch but it's not true vibration. I'd like to talk about the intensity of a low bass, low sound. The wavelength would be further apart and it lasts longer. This would be like in your crusher sounds, your bearings. When you're using bearings and there's something going wrong with it, there's low vibration which causes a lot of vibration and stress on your structure. You could have things coming apart, not know it. This top string on a guitar is an E string and if I hit this E string I can feel or hear the vibration for at least 11 seconds. So I'll show you. I can still feel the vibration of the guitar. This would be like on your machinery, equipment, something island, low speeds. A lot of vibration causes a lot of stress on structures and stuff. Now here the E string is also, the bottom string on a guitar is also an E string and it's higher pitch and your waves would be closer together. This kind of sounds louder but it's actually less vibration and when I hit this string I can only feel it for about 5 seconds, half the time. So it's about half the time the high pitch versus the low pitch. Now the decibels is a noise, anything over 80 decibels. You can work 16 hours, 85 decibels. You can work 16 hours, 90 decibels, 8 hours. When you get 5 decibels louder on each scale then you can only work half that time so it cuts your work force down. 90 decibels I work 8 hours and be safe, 100% of the PEL. If I go 95 decibels then I can only work 4 hours so see that cuts it in half. And that doesn't matter whether you're wearing earplugs or not, 95 decibels I can only work 4 hours with plugs or without in that area. And what I did is my boss challenged me, I play in a country band and he asked me, he says write a song about this noise so here's what I kind of come up with. You want to do the song again? I should have had to listen cause I can't hear today. My best friend works in the gravel pit, working around crushers and dust and bits. I think his hearing is worse than mine, he's hard to talk to, he says what? All the time they're making new laws to cover these sounds. So we have to get those desk bubbles down. You have air arcing in the MG sets, impact noises over 8 seconds, and all the vibrations from the crusher sound. So we have to get those desk bubbles down. So where, where did my hearing go? It was alright about 10 years or so, got to do what they say, or it gets worse every day.