School of Psychiatry, University of NSW, Sydney, Australia.
Anyone out there want to explain a bit more about what causes reduced HRV and/or suggested treatments? In the little bit of searching that I've done I've seen it linked to everything from depression to congestive heart failure. So it's a bit difficult for me to understand how to view these studies.
I'm hoping someone with more medical knowledge will be able to shed some light on this study as well as any other sleep problems related to autonomic dysfunction/dysregulation.
Sorry to be awkward but just to point out to everyone that the Boneva study (but not the initial study) is an empiric criteria (Reeves, 2005) study. It's the Wichita 2-day study cohort which is not as "diluted" as the Georgian cohort but still 10 (most likely - a maximum of 16 anyway but most likely 10) of the 43 CFS cases satisfied the Fukuda definition.
Please don't feel awkward on my account - I want to know the details behind these studies. I appreciate the additional information. Thank you!
I hope there are others out there who can comment on the general concept of reduced HRV and what it might mean in Fukuda and/or CCC ME/CFS patients (or even in heart failure patients, elderly, etc.).
"a pervasive state of nocturnal sympathetic hypervigilance"
From my own experience I can say with confidence that permanent disruption of sleep (failure of sleep) over a long period of time can cause very many of the symptoms of CFS, possibly even enough on its own to cause symptoms approaching a Fukuda but probably not CCC definition. Fatigue, muscle weakness, aches and pains, loss of short term memory and other cogntive impairnents, vulnerability to infection, problems with digestion, (not to mention anxiety and depression), all of these can (IMO) result solely from "a pervasive state of nocturnal hypervigilance" - ie the body never gets to shut down at night. So I reckon that prolonged sleep disturbance - especially if unrecognised - on its own might get you a diagnosis of CFS, with weak criteria. But the more severe neurological and immune symptoms, such as are those listed in the CCC, are more characteristic of 'ME' than 'CFS' (whatever ME and CFS may be...) and I don't know whether they could result from disturbance of sleep / loss of deep sleep alone.
Anyway this is a roundabout way of saying that patients with Reeves/Oxford style definitions and even some Fukuda patients could be found who fit the criteria purely because of sleep disturbance. So the context for this research might be that one subcluster of the "CFS" wastebasket diagnosis is those who have prolonged sleep disturbance, for whatever reason.
The reduced HRV then...the research is just saying there's a correlation between reduced HRV and sleep quality in this grouping patients...I'm not clear which is more likely to cause the other - or another association suspected...and wonder whether there's any such correlation in other patients with sleep apnea...but it seems their conclusion is that this suggests that "sympathetic hypervigilance" is going on in CFS sleep disturbance.
TH2 hyperstimulation (as result of active XMRV infection or otherwise), and over-reaction to environmental triggers, sounds like it could cause "sympathetic hypervigilance" - sounds a good description of what I've had going on anyway.
In addition to what IllSince1989 says, Andrew Lloyd is a fully fledged psychologiser (he was one of the first off the starting block to rubbish XMRV and spread rumours about the WPIs research) -- this is the School of Psychiatry after all. The notion that reduced HRV and sleep dysfunction automatically = nocturnal hypervigilence is stupid and a complete leap of perverse logic. Even if it *was* true, "hypervigilence" would not be important because it's not the cause of ME, unlike a differential diagnosis. Mark, bad insomnia cannot cause all the symptoms/signs of ME. What they're trying to do is make this finding fit a stress hypothethis, an affective disorder or PTSD-like illness which they believe can be magicked away with CBT/GET by using a correlation/causation fallacy. Nothing must get in the way of that message.
What the psychiatrists would call cognitive behavioural therapy. And that basically is a combination of approaches to manage symptoms, say, pain relief for instance [No - it's not actually]; approaches to give people sensible advice about the issue of rest versus exercise in relation to the fatigue syndrome. Managing the sleep/wake cycle if it's gone off the rails, managing mood disorder if it's present, and finally a structured, gradually incrementing graded physical exercise program.
A recent evaluation of patients with chronic fatigue in Hong Kong may provide an important insight for our "Western" medical practice.7 For these patients the notion of having a "medical" versus "psychiatric", or "biomedical" versus "psychosocial", cause of their illness made little sense. Their perception was that, while they were clearly unwell, the potential causes of that suffering could lie across a broad domain of personal, social or medical factors. If Australian patients and their doctors could rediscover this basic concept, and could also accept prolonged fatigue as a legitimate illness experience, there would be no need for the polarisation of aetiological models (and political views) that has become characteristic of medical practice in relation to CFS in the USA and UK. This unnecessary polarisation is intellectually shallow and harmful to patients.
I think he used to be more pro-biomedical but has become incresingly obsessed with GET, referring to "fatigue states" and this sort of psychogibberish sophistry.
Ian Hickie, an Australian psychiatrist who sometimes works with Lloyd on CFS stuff, is another to watch out for. He has been very influential both within Aust and internationally (works with Reeves, White, Wessely, et al, you get the idea, was co-author on the CDC Fukuda definition, & the Australian Clinical Guidelines, and IIRC he gave us the useless and dangerous SPHERE 'test' for somatising). But he has largely managed to escape serious scrutiny so far.
There were studies back in the late 1980's which surprised many cardiologists by showing reduced heart rate variability was an indicator of declining cardiac health. This came out of studies on cardiac dynamics using fairly advanced mathematical theories unfamiliar to most cardiologists. Where a natural assumption that variability increased as you approached a breakdown was wrong was in the misunderstanding of adaptability to changing conditions. Reduced variability meant that feedback in response to changing conditions was not taking place. There is plenty of reason to associate poor cardiac health with poor sleep.
I agree that Lloyd appears to have become more behaviorist but be careful about damning a study because of its authors. HRV readings are probably the most consistently abnormal readings in CFS research - which is really saying something.
Lloyd's big research project the Dubbo studies - had nothing at all to do with behavior - it took a straight shot at the immune system to try and explain why people were coming down with CFS after an infection. I'd be cautious of categorizing Lloyd too narrowly - yes he does believe behavioral therapies are helpful but he's also been very interested in immune functioning and pathogens as well as gene expression.
he's also been very interested in immune functioning and pathogens as well as gene expression.
I'm not convinced he's interesting in finding pathogens and using anti-viral and anti-microbial treatments.
Comment on "Detection of an Infectious Retrovirus, XMRV, in Blood Cells of Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome"
Lombardi et al. (Reports, 23 October 2009, p. 585) reported a significant association between the human retrovirus XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). However, the cases with CFS and the control subjects in their study are poorly described and unlikely to be representative. Independent replication is a critical first step before accepting the validity of this finding.
1 Centre for Infection and Inflammation Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia 2052.
2 Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Barts and the London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, London, UK.
3 Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, UK.
4 School of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, University of Edinburgh, UK.
5 Center for Clinical and Epidemiological Research, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98101, USA.
The finding of a significant association between xenotropic murine leukemia virusrelated virus (XMRV) and the enigmatic clinical illness, chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), has the potential to revise our understanding of the pathogenesis of this condition and raise serious public health concerns (1). It is unusual to find such a strong association between an infectious agent and a well-defined chronic disease, much less an illness like CFS. As such, critical evaluation of the results is paramount. Experienced CFS researchers will remember the 1991 "discovery" of an HTLV-2like retrovirus in CFS (2), which subsequent studies failed to replicate (36).
For reliable results, clearly defined cases should be compared to a control group similar in all aspects other than the disease. The 101 patients studied in (1) were "patients fulfilling the 1994 CDC Fukuda criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome and the 2003 Canadian Consensus Criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalitis (CFS/ME) and presenting with severe disability" [supporting online material for (1)], but the latter requires physical signs precluded in the former. The patients were selected, in part, with immunologic perturbations such as in RNase L pathways, yet there are no biomarkers that have demonstrated reliability in affirming the diagnosis of CFS (7). Lombardi et al. (1) provided no description of demographics, illness duration, pattern of onset, or evaluation for exclusionary medical and psychiatric conditions. Likewise, the characteristics of the controls, and details of collection, handling, and storage of specimens, are not described. It is therefore impossible to critically evaluate the findings.
CFS is likely to arise from complex genes-x-environment risk factors, making a simple causative link between XMRV and CFS unlikely. Even if confirmed, further research will be needed to demonstrate causality. In relation to prostate cancer, with which a comparable association with XMRV was reported (8), negative replication studies are mounting (9). Similarly, three negative replication studies in well-characterized cases of CFS have now been published (1012). This outcome serves as a cogent reminder of the need for independent replication before findings such as this can be accepted.
1. V. C. Lombardi et al., Detection of an infectious retrovirus, XMRV, in blood cells of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Science 326, 585 (2009).
2. E. DeFreitas et al., Retroviral sequences related to human T-lymphotropic virus type II in patients with chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 88, 2922 (1991).
3. J. W. Gow et al., Search for retrovirus in the chronic fatigue syndrome. J. Clin. Pathol. 45, 1058 (1992).
4. M. Honda et al., Japanese patients with chronic fatigue syndrome are negative for known retrovirus infections. Microbiol. Immunol. 37, 779 (1993).
5. A. S. Khan et al., Assessment of a retrovirus sequence and other possible risk factors for the chronic fatigue syndrome in adults. Ann. Intern. Med. 118, 241 (1993).
6. W. Heneine et al., Lack of evidence for infection with known human and animal retroviruses in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Clin. Infect. Dis. 18 (suppl. 1), S121 (1994).
7. M. Lyall, M. Peakman, S. Wessely, A systematic review and critical evaluation of the immunology of chronic fatigue syndrome. J. Psychosom. Res. 55, 79 (2003).
8. R. Schlaberg, D. J. Choe, K. R. Brown, H. M. Thaker, I. R. Singh, XMRV is present in malignant prostatic epithelium and is associated with prostate cancer, especially high-grade tumors. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106, 16351 (2009).
9. O. Hohn et al., Lack of evidence for xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus(XMRV) in German prostate cancer patients. Retrovirology 6, 92 (2009).
10. O. Erlwein et al., Failure to detect the novel retrovirus XMRV in chronic fatigue syndrome. PLoS ONE 5, e8519 (2010).
11. H. C. Groom et al., Absence of xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus in UK patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Retrovirology 7, 10 (2010).
12. F. J. M. van Kuppeveld et al., Prevalence of xenotropic murine leukaemia virus-related virus in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome in the Netherlands: retrospective analysis of samples from an established cohort. BMJ 340, c1018 (2010).
13. M.S. has been paid by insurers for independent advice on medical claims that might include CFS. He has also been paid by lawyers for independent advice on litigation that might include CFS.
Received for publication 22 October 2009. Accepted for publication 18 April 2010.
From the full text of the article.
Whether reduced HRV during sleep is linked to the common experience of sleep problems and unrefreshing sleep in CFS has not been explored. The objective of this study is to examine this link, hypothesising that diminished HRV during sleep is associated with poorer sleep quality in subjects with CFS. The effects of relevant covariates of sleep quality including levels of current stress, and psychological distress were also considered.
The 30-item perceived stress questionnaire (PSQ) was used to assess current levels of stress (Levenstein etal. 1993) and common symptoms of psychological distress were reported via the Kessler 10 (K10; Kessler etal. 2002). Functional impairment was assessed by The Brief Disability Questionnaire (BDQ; Von KorV etal. 1996). The 34-item Somatic and Psychological Health Report (SPHERE; Hickie etal. 2001) was used to assess a wide range of physical and psychological symptoms.
The low levels of nocturnal HRV found in our study, are suggestive of a pervasive state of sympathetic hypervigilanceone which is consistent with previous reports of hypoactivity in the prefrontal cortex in this population.
This doesn't appear to me to be a study to determine any kind of medical causation of sleep difficulties in CFS. Why would they even choose to use assessments of psychological health in a study such as this? This is more of the same in my opinion.
A range of other outcomes/conditions may also be associated with modified (usually lower) HRV, including congestive heart failure, diabetic neuropathy, depression post-cardiac transplant, susceptibility to SIDS and poor survival in premature babies.
12 out of the 20 were from the Dubbo study (RRV: N = 7; EBV: N = 4; Coxiella burnetii: N = 1), the other 8 from Dr. Lloyd's practice.
(Freeman and Komaroff 1997; De Lorenzo et al.
a determinant of the documented differences in HRV.
They don't tell us of the "physical" conditions where low HRV is an issue.
defaulting to a sympathetically driven system.
in other forms of dysautonomia seen in CFS.
"Impaired cardiovascular response to standing in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome"
We have demonstrated that the skeletal muscle bioenergetic abnormality recently described in patients with CFS  associates with a similar cardiac bioenergetic abnormality. This impairment is associated with an increase in cardiac contractility on standing (i.e. the heart has to work harder for the same degree of physiological stress), the severity of which associates with symptoms on standing in those with CFS.


How long does it take for my server to be setup?
As all our servers ar cutom built, typically it will take 72 hours for your sever to be fully setup and working. As soon as the server setup is complete you will be emailed full details on how to access your new server.


Ecclesiastes 1:11 No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That's what the Quester says.] There's nothing to anything—it's all smoke. What's there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone? One g There is no remembrance of earlier things; And also of the later things which will occur, There will be for them no remembrance Among those who will come later still. We don't remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. People don't remember what happened long ago, and in the future people will not remember what happens now. Even later, other people will not remember what was done before them. There is no remembrance of the former generations; neither shall there be any remembrance of the latter generations that are to come, among those that shall come after. There is no remembrance of earlier things, Nor also of the later things that are to come; There will be for them no remembrance By generations who will come after them. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.
Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That's what the Quester says.] There's nothing to anything—it's all smoke. What's there to show for a lifetime of work, a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone? One generation goes its way, the next one arrives, but nothing changes—it's business as usual for old planet earth. The sun comes up and the sun goes down, then does it again, and again—the same old round. The wind blows south, the wind blows north. Around and around and around it blows, blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind. All the rivers flow into the sea, but the sea never fills up. The rivers keep flowing to the same old place, and then start all over and do it again. Everything's boring, utterly boring— no one can find any meaning in it. Boring to the eye, boring to the ear. What was will be again, what happened will happen again. There's nothing new on this earth. Year after year it's the same old thing. Does someone call out, "Hey, this is new"? Don't get excited—it's the same old story. Nobody remembers what happened yesterday. And the things that will happen tomorrow? Nobody'll remember them either. Don't count on being remembered.
We don't remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.
People don't remember what happened long ago, and in the future people will not remember what happens now. Even later, other people will not remember what was done before them.
There is no remembrance of earlier things, Nor also of the later things that are to come; There will be for them no remembrance By generations who will come after them.


As discussed in my article questioning nut consumption on a Paleo diet, macadamia nuts are probably the healthiest nuts available because of their high monounsaturated and low polyunsaturated fat content as well as their low levels of anti-nutrients. They can thus be enjoyed without guilt. This hummus recipe is great with anything where you would normally use regular hummus or Baba Ghanoush.


The treadmill is a tool that is not explored as much as it should be. It has a reputation of being boring compared to running outside. As much as there is a good deal of truth to this, it also offers many benefits that can't be replicated on the roads for athletes of all levels. Learn more about this excellent training tool in the article below.
Running on a treadmill with zero degree incline allows you to run faster than you would on the road, but with the same aerobic load, which means you can run faster for longer, thus developing the motor skills associated with that improved speed. Make sure you keep the treadmill completely flat (no incline) at 0% grade, not 1% as some coaches or articles recommend.
What does this mean? You have a greater benefit from the same workout. This is because the feeling and load when you run for example at 4'30″/ km on the treadmill is easier than the same pace when running outside, so in order to generate the same aerobic load you are able to increase the speed.
If you can run at 4'30″/ km for 5 km outside, it is likely that you can hold around 4'15" / km on the treadmill, at the same aerobic load, same heart rate and very similar perceived effort. However, you work your motor skills at a faster rate, and by doing it frequently, your muscles will be used to working and getting that rhythm and you end up running faster because you are training your legs at a faster rate than your aerobic system.
Fewer injuries and faster recovery is another benefit of treadmill running. While it is crucial, especially for long races, to get some pounding into the legs from the long runs, for most of the other run sessions, the impact on the legs from a treadmill is lower than running outside. This allows the athlete to train at a higher quality and volume without increasing the risk of injury.
The treadmill allows you to better monitor your workout improvement and that gives you the opportunity to better understand how your body responds to external factors such as sleep, diet or stress. The more often you run on the treadmill with consistent variables, a feedback is generated on where you are in terms of fitness in relation to your recent training. This can also be a gauge for your fitness level without the need of entering a race very often.
This is only possible when factors that are variable outside, become controllable on the treadmill, such as gradient, wind speed and temperature.
As you get used to doing your running on the treadmill, you can simulate the reality of a triathlon race. You can use gradients, or combine with a spinning bike to simulate your race day needs. Depending on the gym, you can swim then run, or lift weights then run and that will teach you to run on tired legs. As long as you do every workout in order to run with the best technique, you will greatly improve your ability to run well in a triathlon.
One of the major limiting factors of every athlete is to run at an appropriate pace both in training and races.
The treadmill helps you learn to control your pace, because unlike running outside, if the pace is too fast and you need to slow down, you have to manually make this change in speed and slow the treadmill down, while out on the roads, your speed may drop without you noticing.
Each time this happens, it is a stimulus for you to try to maintain the next repeat or run at the same speed until the end.
This also simulates running with a strong training partner since when you run with a faster athlete, it is easier to stick to that faster pace compared to running alone. The motivation to run with a training partner helps you achieve new speeds and goals. The same can be done with the treadmill, because you need to make the decision manually, to "give up" when you slow the treadmill down, or compared to outside running, you decide to let your training partner go.
For some athletes based in big cities, the commute to a park or a track can just take too long, while there is usually a gym close to home with a good treadmill (which reaches at least16km/ h). You have the benefits of finishing the workout at the gym, either before or after work, in addition to the always mild temperature, regardless if outside it is too hot or cold.
Safety is also another reason for treadmill training that should not be ignored. Some athletes only have the opportunity to train early in the morning or late in the evening. The treadmill allows athletes with non-traditional schedules to train safely at whatever the time they have to run, and it also keeps them safe from cars or bicycles.
The main reason for most athletes to not use the treadmill is the mental part, we may all agree that a run on the treadmill without a challenging set can be relatively boring and it just won't beat the fun of running outdoors, especially in a nice place with a group of friends or in nature.
Enjoying training is one of the reasons why we do this sport, and the lifestyle benefits. I had an athlete who once told me "I refuse to train indoors, I do triathlons to feel the wind blowing through my hair," which is an understandable argument. But once you care a little about performing in races, or you find yourself in a situation and circumstances where you aren't allowed to train in nice environments, try to structure your workouts into sets on the treadmill and it can become extremely fun and challenging.
Every athlete must also learn to understand the positive side of every situation, in addition to all the benefits already mentioned in this article, running on the treadmill makes you mentally stronger and not easily distracted. This has a great value in triathlons, as you will find yourself in a situation when you will need to focus on the effort you are doing, especially later in the run leg when you are getting fatigued.


Hoiho, the WLUG server, was shown. CraigMckenna has donated 128mb of RAM for the machine (it thrases a little with only 64). There is a driver to let Linux access more than 256mb of RAM on these chipsets, so we may be able to run with more RAM if required.
Subscriptions were collected from 13 members - thank you very much to those people. CraigBox has the money which will be used to register the incorporated society and open a bank account.
JamieCurtis collected and witnessed 15 signatures for the creation of this society.
CraigMckenna had collected GPG key fingerprints, and everyone on the list checked everyone's photo ID. Craig explained how to sign a key and update the trust database.
The election of a treasurer - KyleCarter and GreigMcGill nominated each other, however neither wished to accept the nomination. Kyle then nominated Greig's wife, however Greig turned down the nomination on her behalf. Greig nominated CraigMckenna, who accepted. Voted unanimously.
There was discussion of wireless networking. It would be nice to get a high point to set up a community network, but there are other groups currently petitioning the council to do so. It might be best to offer our expertise to these people. CRCnet have offered to help any interested groups.
Next meeting date is Labour day; the meeting is to be moved to the 3rd Monday of October (21st of October). Daniel has suggested that the meeting be held at Crawshaw School, and several people discussed a meeting on various security and network auditing tools. See MeetingTopics.2002-10-21.


text:
Asteroids Get a Surface Makeover When They Pass Near Earth
Earth's gravitational pull shakes up weathered surfaces on asteroids that venture into the planet's surprisingly large sphere of influence
By John Matson on January 20, 2010
Many asteroids have a reddish tint as a result of sun-induced weathering and bombardment by micrometeorites, but a select few retain a relatively pristine gray appearance. In the January 21 issue of Nature planetary scientist Richard Binzel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues report a finding that may clear up the asteroid-coloration mystery once and for all. (Scientific American is part of Nature Publishing Group.)
Binzel and his colleagues found that an asteroid passing through Earth's vicinity is literally shaken by the encounter, turning up fresh material on the asteroid's loosely bound surface.
A great many asteroids show evidence of weathering, a reddening process likely marking degradation of minerals by the charged particles of the solar wind that is "almost like a sunburn," Binzel says. And a 2009 study from a related group had shown that this reddening process can happen in less than a million years, which is fast on an astronomical timescale. So whatever phenomenon is responsible for refreshed asteroidal surfaces, it must be a recurrent or recent process; otherwise the solar wind would have had time to overwrite its effects.
The researchers traced the orbits of 95 known asteroids 500,000 years back in time to test the theory that past encounters with Earth might affect the asteroids' surface properties, an idea proposed five years ago by David Nesvorný of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and his colleagues. "We found that all of the fresh ones had encountered the Earth within the past few hundred thousand years," Binzel says. Similarly, all of the 20 objects that appear to have remained outside the moon's orbit for the past 500,000 years are ruddy—they have not passed close enough to Earth for a resurfacing seismic shake.
Passing within about 100,000 kilometers, or roughly a quarter of the Earth–moon distance, the researchers propose that asteroids feel a sufficient influence from Earth's gravity to induce what Binzel calls "a little bit of tidal stress, a little tug-of-war with the Earth." Because their surfaces are essentially loose rubble, the shaking caused by that tug-of-war is enough to turn up fresh gray material. "It's kind of like if you dig into a snowbank next to a highway," Binzel says. "You turn a few shovelfuls over and the fresh white snow will replace the dirty snow on top."
The same phenomenon should occur for asteroids whose orbits buzz the comparably sized Venus and, to a lesser extent, the less massive Mars, although the asteroid population near those planets is less well characterized. An observable test of the seismic shaking theory may come in 2029, when the near-Earth asteroid Apophis will pass within about 30,000 kilometers of Earth, well within the proximity limit established by Binzel and his colleagues and near the orbit of some geosynchronous satellites. If Binzel and his colleagues are correct, then Apophis, which currently boasts a grizzled, space-weathered appearance, may leave its 2029 encounter with Earth looking a refreshed shade of gray.
John Matson
John Matson is a former reporter and editor for Scientific American who has written extensively about astronomy and physics.
Astronaut Chris Hadfield Covers David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in Space [Video]
In Einstein's Universe, Airplanes and Staircases Are Time Machines
Sean Carroll Entangles Time and Entropy

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


"Academic writing and research may be knotty and strange, remote and insular, technical and specialized, forbidding and clannish—but that's because academia has become that way, too. Today's academic work, excellent though it may be, is the product of a shrinking system. It's a tightly-packed, super-competitive jungle in there".
6-year old question to Neil deGrasse Tyson: What's the Meaning of Life?


Hand knitted from our studio in Aberdeen, Scotland, the hat is made from a striped blend of green, brown and beige top, made from a high quality merino/mohair yarn.
Fits most heads up to 65cm circumference, because keeping your head cosy whilst in enjoying the wintry conditions of the great outdoors is important. One of the advantages of using real wool means that it moulds to any head, without losing any of its shape. Finished with a hand stitched veg tan Fernweh label detailing.
Beautifully soft brushed fleece Merino/mohair mix yarn means this hat is extra soft and cosy, keeping your head completely warm in the plummeting temperatures.
28cm from brim to top of hat.
Please allow for slight variations as each hat is handmade to order. Although we will get your order to you as soon as possible, please allow up to two weeks for manufacture and delivery as each item is handmade.
Hand wash only, and leave to dry away from natural light.
Fernweh UK is the trading name of Laura Sherriffs.