Some time ago I pledged to aim my energy, focus, and hard hitting rationality on my life problems (depression, various medical problems, dissatisfaction with my financial situation, among other things).<\/p>\n
The results have been nothing short of spectacular. Breathtaking, even. I quit smoking. I am not depressed. I have created a sustainable and comfortable financial situation for myself. And many peculiar medical ailments that I have suffered with for years are now gone. What follows is a recap of how I did it. Note: The following\u00a0is not medical or psychological advice, consult a healthcare professional for that<\/em>.<\/p>\n I’ve previously summarized the extraordinarily good advice <\/a>of Dr. Stephen Ilardi on this blog, and I highly recommend his book The Depression Cure<\/em><\/a>. I also take SAMe<\/a>. I’ve even done some intermittent fasting (which\u00a0is good for your brain and immune system among other systems<\/a>)\u00a0lately to make sure those sugar cravings die and stay dead. I often like to go 18 or 20 hours without eating and then eat a scrambled egg with butter and a full meal at the end.<\/p>\n For diet, my go-to book is\u00a0Super Immunity<\/em><\/a> (recommended to me by my physician). Essentially, it recommends a natural foods diet. I try very hard to eat natural foods and stay away from processed crap.\u00a0I\u00a0especially like to stay\u00a0away from oils that are high in Omega 6’s<\/a> (vegetable oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, etc.). Which means no potato chips. Or nuts with added oils (which is most<\/em> nuts sold in convenience stores, FYI). I allow myself to eat plenty of butter and California Olive Oil (it’s purer<\/a> and more subject to regulation than the stuff from overseas).<\/p>\n Mr Money Mustache<\/a> taught me that the cheapest way to live is to stay in a centrally located part of town\/city, don’t own a car, just ride a bike everywhere. Although my rent is a bit higher now, my car expenses (topping $500 a month) are gone and the net result is that I have more money.<\/p>\n Isn’t that giving up a lot of convenience? Not at all. Living in the Phoenix Metro area, I can’t tell you how many times it’s taken me 20 minutes to drive 3.5 miles because traffic was congested.\u00a0“I might as well bike,” I thought to myself when I was first contemplating this radical life change. Statistics prove the same: bikes can be just as fast if not faster<\/em> (!) than cars in the context of a city<\/a>.* Beyond that, living in a central area puts you close to all your basic needs and pretty much everything (including groceries) can be ordered online nowadays anyway. For the occasional long trip I plan to use either public transit, Uber\/Lyft, or a combination. Everything’s covered.<\/p>\n I have been doing this for the past six weeks and it’s been going great! Easily one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. And I am proud of it because it was a life’s decision where I trusted a rational comparison with empirical information against gut feelings that were screaming not to do it (I’ve owned a car since I was 16). Trusting reason and evidence turns out to be a good idea not just in philosophy, but also in life.\u00a0At last\u00a0I see that not just intellectually but in a more personal and real<\/em> way: in my own life!<\/p>\n Other than that, I’ve been following some tips and tricks like those mentioned in these articles (one <\/a>\/ two<\/a> \/ three<\/a> \/ four<\/a>) to keep my brain chemistry up and running smoothly.<\/p>\n 59 Seconds<\/em> <\/a>and The Procrastination Equation<\/em> <\/a>offer very good psychological techniques for getting things done. When I was kicking cigarettes to the curb, occasionally temptation came knocking. When that happened, I would always think about how I wanted improved health and sex appeal more than cigarettes. This technique can be applied to any situation: find the motivators, the things you want more than the bad habit, and remind yourself of those things.<\/p>\n If you absolutely insist on not reading hundreds of pages (A meaty book is a true pleasure, but we are all pressed for time) then I’d recommend this\u00a0summary<\/a> of the 17 Anti-Procrastination Hacks (as well as this outline summary<\/a> of The Procrastination Equation<\/em>).\u00a0Just understand that by reading the summary you won’t necessarily get a full overview of scientific evidence for the technique, the fascinating stories about how it was discovered, and so on. The executive summary is just meant for a quick read and a follow through on the part of the listener based on trust. But if you’re willing to do it to save time, more power to you.<\/p>\n It’s been a huge confidence boost, watching\u00a0myself man handle so much in so little time! I’ve done such a good job with so much lately that I felt I needed a reward, which is why I wrote this post…<\/p>\n “Reflecting on past significant achievements allows the brain to re-live the experience. Our brain<\/a> has trouble telling the difference between what\u2019s real and imagined, so it produces serotonin in both cases.” (Source<\/a>)<\/p>\n Note<\/em><\/p>\n * The episode of Adam Ruins Everything<\/em> called “Adam Ruins Cars” is well worth watching on this topic. He does a great job of explaining\u00a0why cars\u00a0suck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Some time ago I pledged to aim my energy, focus, and hard hitting rationality on my life problems (depression, various…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[367,288,366,370,368,365,362,215,369],"class_list":["post-1457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cognitive-behavioral-therapy","tag-depression","tag-diet","tag-dopamine","tag-intermittent-fasting","tag-neurohacking","tag-quitting-smoking","tag-self-help","tag-serotonin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1461,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1457\/revisions\/1461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/humesapprentice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}