Monthly Musings May 2022

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

A majority of this month was dedicated to promoting the book I co-authored on Houston. There were plenty of people visiting, events like a radio show, an appearance in the news, etc that took me away from this project and actually buckling down to nail down the details of the Star Engine.

I did however, go viral again on Reddit, with one post outlining a map of meditation practice getting almost 2k likes and 360k views.

I’ve also been coaching a few people, and those conversations yielded some interesting nuances. One person ended up not only replicating my habit in a day experiment, but improved upon it by playing Minecraft during the induction process, which seems to have significantly sped it up (more on that in a separate post)!

I’m in month 3 of tally clicking mental states. And while things seem to be happening on the wellness department, I’ve felt supremely distracted and unfocused this month.

Despite this, I’ve experimented more with Bixby Routines for a better more automated morning habit stack. My phone automatically blocks most apps, while launching a gratitude app, something I’m surprised more people aren’t talking about.

INTERESTING STUFF

• Eye positioning can cause wakefulness [The Huberman Lab]

• How to use caffeine [The Huberman Lab]

• Sunlight in the morning as essential for mental and physical health [The Huberman Lab]

• 26 Upgrades to the Pomodoro Method [Mike and Matty] - these guys have rapidly become my favorite resource for studying on Youtube. This video includes a really interesting study on “body doubling” - where simply having the presence of someone else keeps you focused.

SOCIAL

• 5 ways to lengthen meditation time [Reddit]

• 19 self-help books that are “hidden gems” [Reddit]

• Good mantras/affirmations to get you out of bed in the morning [Reddit]

• Some of my favorite forms of meditation [Reddit]

• 3 Effective methods to overcome social anxiety [Reddit]

• Better methods to progress affirmations [Reddit]

• A general guide to the differences between Eastern and Western epistemology with respect to meditation [Reddit]

• A modern method for training a Stoic sage [Reddit]

• 7 ways to train focus [Reddit]

• 9 tips for staying consistent with meditation [Reddit]

• How to meditate on “no-self” [Reddit]

• 7 meditations I like the most [Reddit]

• My go-to method of “stripped-down” tantra [Reddit]

• The minimum daily time of meditation for it to still have an effect [Reddit]

• How to not react to your thoughts while meditating [Reddit]

• How to avoid napping during the day [Reddit]

• How to meditate when your mind is agitated [Reddit]

• How to know how much time you need to do a task for planning [Reddit]

• How to organize your practice when you do multiple types of meditation [Reddit]

• How to stay motivated and consistent with meditation [Reddit]

• How to consistently get up early [Reddit]

• Sorting out a grab bad of misunderstood concepts in meditation [Reddit]

• How to integrate meditation into all aspects of life [Reddit]

• How to gain insight into no-self in meditation [Reddit]

• How and why you should aim to get results in meditation [Reddit]

• A roadmap to meditation practice [Reddit]

• How to de-train negative thinking [Reddit]

MISCELLANEOUS & ESOTERIC

• How to throw a toothpick and shoot coins. I think that videos learning small skills like this, often on Youtube, offer a snapshot for the entirety of the mastery process, and are highly worth experimenting with. While learning a language might take 2 years, studying things like this might be like geneticists studying fruit flies since the lifespan occurs relatively quickly in comparison.

• Cyclic sighing, what Andrew Huberman calls an optimal breathing pattern. I need to look more into this, but it seems really bizarre.

• Atom, an app for building a meditation habit.

• This video is why I hate so many current discussions of flow. It sounds good, there’s all sorts of intellectual psych talk built in, but it doesn’t really give many tips on how to actually get into flow and control it for anything you want to do (despite the massively misleading title).

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings April 2022

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

I spent most of this month involved with marketing the book that I co-authored on my city. You can check it out HERE.

In addition I spent a lot of time procrastinating on kicking off the Star Engine. While it sounds really good, putting into place is a real pain.

My procrastination tends to find an outlet on Reddit, where one of my posts went a tiny bit viral. It was shared on r/bestof where it rose to one of the top posts of the week, was upvoted thousands of times, and viewed about 350k times. Not bad for a post that I thought was not my best.

I also just completed a month of tally clicking mental states. This is my third experiment using this method after my mental health went down the drain last month. I hope to do a whole write up on this, and get around to writing about my second experiment, which lasted for 5 months and taught me a lot about the process of essentially dog training mindset.

INTERESTING STUFF

• Updated info on the 52:17 ideal work rest ratio. The initial analysis looked at all of the work apps users to find that the most efficient 10% of users tended to use this ratio. This has changed due to the pandemic. [Desktime blog]

SOCIAL

• Strategies to stay in the moment for mindfulness [Reddit]

• Memory shifting - a method to change the emotional content of memories [Instagram]

• How to stop feeling like you have to master your hobbies [Reddit]

• Using video games for meditation [Reddit]

• How to get good at writing [Reddit]

• The difference between mindfulness and deep focus, with a categorization of levels of focus [Reddit]

• How to advance your meditation practice [Reddit]

• How to actually practice writing [Reddit]

• How to develop will [Reddit]

• How to observe thoughts in meditation [Reddit]

• How much should I meditate? [Reddit]

• On art and meditation [Reddit]

• A list of habits to work on {Reddit]

• Using meditation to counter addiction [Reddit]

• Meditation and insomnia [Reddit]

• Why you shouldn’t smoke weed and meditate when starting the practice [Reddit]

• What I wished I had known when I first started meditating [Reddit]

• What is your favorite book on meditation? [Reddit]

• How to deepen meditation practice after establishing a solid habit [Reddit]

• My r/bestof post on a framework for building routines - sleep hygiene, productivity, and habits [Reddit]

MISCELLANEOUS & ESOTERIC

• How to develop intuition in cooking. Internet Shaquille on Youtube digs into what it means to leap beyond basic straight forward learning and develop a greater sense of the skill. This is one of those things like “falling in love with the process” that’s so vague and ephemeral, yet very much a thing. This is really one of the very few descriptions to explicitly describe the process.

• How to train listening to your body for food. Again, this is just one of those things that people bandy about without getting into HOW do actually do it. I like the thought that this might be a skill on its own with progressions and training options, some of which this article gets into.

• A raw data tracker. So many wearable trackers try to sell that they’re just observing bodily functions and reporting them, but that’s really not true. Most of them use some form of algorithm to project what the actual data would be, and that’s really problematic if you want to run self experimentation.

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings March 2022

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

The last month has been almost exclusively dealing with massive amounts of depression and constructing a new way of inducting multiple habits at once.

Depression has really been pushing into doing my own version of a meditation retreat, using behavioral methods. I’ve been coaching some people on meditation and am now putting together a proposal for a behaviorally informed meditation book. I’ve also successfully coached one person into forming two full habits - the first two habits this person has ever deliberately made.

In addition, I’ve been watching in awe as Lydia levels up her running habit, tackling half marathon after half marathon with seeming ease using an amazing running system which I’d like to not only copy, but apply to other skills.

INTERESTING STUFF

• When is the best time to exercise? [New York Times]

• Methods for Non Sleep Deep Rest [Inc]

• Even a little light can mess up sleep [CNN]

• The master control neuron for habits [Big Think]

• Warmer offices increase productivity for women [The Atlantic]

• Where emotions get trapped in the body [Healthline]

• Not all screens are the same for developing cognition [Get Pocket]

• How to regain focus [Psychology Today]

• Stretching before sleep leads to better sleep [Sleep.com]

• Getting enough sleep might lower the amount of calories you eat [New Scientist]

• How to train your body to recover faster [8 Weeks Out]

• Edison’s sleep wakeup strategy to boost creativity [Science.org]

• Mike and Matty’s Ultimate Study Guide [Mike and Matty]

• “Quiet Eye” training to improve performance [Bulletproof Musician]

• An overview of spaced repetition learning [College Info Geek]

• Optimizing the coffee nap [Crescent.co]

• How to be more likable according to science [Refinery 21]

RESEARCH

• A list of scales for measuring mindfulness [measures | writeup]

• A study that I believe confirms my newer habit model which separates habit starts and habit loads [study]

• 3 seconds of eccentric weight lifting per day improves strength [study | writeup]

• A behavioral analysis of toothbrushing [article]

• A meta analysis on the optimal number of walking steps for longevity [study | writeup]

SOCIAL

• How to avoid stagnation in meditation [Reddit]

• The science behind affirmations [Instagram]

• How to balance multiple hobbies, work, and a social life [Reddit]

• Tim Ferriss’ DiSSS method for learning any skill [Instagram]

• Behavioral advice for coping with depression [Reddit]

• How to stop intrusive imagery when meditating [Reddit]

• How to find what hobby you like [Reddit]

• How to change your luck [Reddit]

• Ways to turn around a day that starts crappy [Reddit]

• How to stay emotionally invested in becoming better [Reddit]

MISCELLANEOUS & ESOTERIC

• Visual focus is connected to mental focus. This is really weird - they talk about Olympic runners and how they focus on the finish line visually, and tried to apply this to regular people. 2 groups were weighted and told to walk to a finish line. The intervention group was told to visually look and narrow focus towards the finish line, and they found that their effort was subjectively less, they subjectively thought the finish line was closer, and they got there faster compared to the control group.

• Forward - a health care provider that focuses on preventative health. Finally! These guys say they do a lot of behavioral stuff, from weight management and stress control, to sleep health. I hope this trend continues.

• The Quantified Scientist - a scientist who breaks down and assessing trackers. He has a great video on the Garmin sleep tracking algorithm and the studies that went into it, as well as how it compares to other devices.

• A training paradigm for Mini Workouts spread across the day. The author argues that you can still get gains, and incorporates a number of studies and his own experiences in the article.

• How to transition to floor sitting. She includes a lot of reasons why you should do it, but more importantly, discusses potential props and progressions.

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings Dec, Jan, Feb 2021/2022

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

I got highly distracted in the last three months, so I’ve had to combine them all together for this roundup.

A lot of my habits have gone dormant, so I’m trying to figure out a way to restart them quickly, while at the same time adding more all at once. This is not usually a good thing, but I’ve been ruminating about a new, solid behavioral method to do this well. There’s more than one way to skin a habit, and I think having different behaviors rest on different methods of habit formation might alleviate the system wide strain that I’ve experience in the past of doing too much too fast.

I’ve also been working on a book proposal for a better way to train meditation. It’s risen out of a number of articles and thoughts I’ve had, but came to a head when someone on Reddit asked for the best practices for an intensive retreat. It got me wondering how would I form my own retreat, and how could it take advantage of all the behavioral principles I’ve learned.

INTERESTING STUFF

• How to take a mental health day [New York Times]

• How different cultures define happiness [The Atlantic]

• Can meditation apps be harmful? [Tricycle]

• Building a rest ethic that’s as strong as your work ethic [Fast Company]

• Using awe to spark creativity [Writers Helping Writers]

• Does perfectionism really kill creativity? [Bulletproof Musician]

• A master course on how to use tea and coffee effectively for studying [Mike and Matty]

• Does Lo-fi music actually help you study? [Mike and Matty]

RESEARCH

• Daytime napping vs cramming [study]

• When to get to sleep to consolidate memories [study]

• Studying consciousness without content [paper]

SOCIAL

• How to use meditation to deal with jealousy/envy [Reddit]

• How to get things done if you have executive dysfunction [Reddit]

• Techniques for being mindful under pressure [Reddit]

• Meditations for insomnia [Reddit]

• Techniques for stopping mental chatter at night [Reddit]

• What to do when taking breaks from Pomodoros [Reddit]

• How to naturally wake up early [Reddit]

• Finding a balance between self improvement and rest/living [Reddit]

• Dealing with morning anxiety [Reddit]

• How to be UNFOCUSED and productive [Reddit]

MISCELLANEOUS & ESOTERIC

• Using the horse stance to develop willpower

• Essential oil nasal inhalers for a boost in mood

• A “good morning” simulator game

• The Art of Memory - a forum on mind palaces and memory techniques

• Using “forced empathy” as a negotiation tactic

• Diffusion techniques for unhooking your mind

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings November 2021

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

This month I was happy to be invited as a guest on another podcast with Nate Sleger (linked below) on becoming a morning person. I visited Lydia’s family in New Mexico for a family reunion and Thanksgiving. I also had significant issues with depression. 

One day when I was driving around in a massive depressive pit, I realized how much music was affecting me. I thought about how hard it was to make decisions in this state, and it struck me how similar all of it was to low willpower. Wouldn’t be interesting if depression worked in similar ways?

In a previous article, I talked about how there are things that are actually optimized in low willpower states. Certain psychological primes have a higher uptake and impact, which might explain how music might affect me more when I’m depressed. Does depression improve creativity like tiredness? Is it every OPTIMAL to be depressed? And can we take advantage of it rather than just fight against it?

I’ve also completely switched to a seated desk, and am loving Mark Sisson’s concept of archetypical rest postures (linked below). While normal seated has been recently vilified, Sisson believes that sitting on the ground has even more benefits that standing desks because you naturally switch between a number of hip opening, gravity enhanced, passive stretches for longer times. For him, it might even negate the need to mobilize at all (though I’m not sure if I fully agree with him on this).

Interesting Stuff

• Simple Steps to Becoming a Morning Person [Begin Within with Nate Sleger]

• A memory champion’s tricks on how to remember almost anything [Wired]

• 7 types of rest every person needs [Ted]

• Herman Ebbinghaus’s forgetting curve [Wikipedia]

• Envy for productivity [Discover]

• Why staring at screens elongates your eyeballs and how to stop it [The Guardian]

• Differential learning - can too much repetition and consistency be bad? [Bulletproof Musician]

• How to get flexible through science [Yiannis Christoulas on Youtube]

Research

• Passive stretching through archetypical rest postures [video | article | paper]

Social

• Self Improvement books that changed the way I looked at things [Reddit]

• How the Spacing Effect can help you learn more efficiently [Instagram]

• How to renew willpower [Reddit]

• Can negative emotions be productive? [Reddit]

• How to quit eating sugar [Reddit]

• How to meditate longer [Reddit]

• How to make better use of mornings if you’re a night owl [Reddit]

• The science of productive background noise [Reddit]

• A quick trick to silence your inner voice [Reddit]

• How to build a community [Reddit]

• How to ensure you have a productive day [Reddit]

• The theory of becoming a successful polymath [Reddit]

• How to counter morning anxiety [Reddit]

• Building a better morning and bedtime sleep routine [Reddit]

• How to observe thoughts and feelings without attachment in meditation [Reddit]

Miscellaneous and Esoteric

• Bioelectric Qigong: A Critical Approach from an Insider - My buddy Barnaby’s recent podcast on his insider experience with high level qigong practitioners.

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings October 2021

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

This month was pretty uneventful. After turning in a massive book project last month, I’ve been suffering from a bit of paralysis in moving forward with personal goals. I’ve also gone out of town and had guests visit, all of which changed up the normal flow of things.

But I did finish the first phase of the Finder’s Course, an intense meditation course, record a podcast on sleep, and attend my first in-person Stoic group meeting since before the pandemic started. I’m two months into my new sleep protocols, resulting in ongoing and automatic early morning wake ups. This is a huge change for me, and I’m glad it’s still stable despite all the recent interruptions to my routines.

Oh, and Coursera reference me in an article on motivation (linked below).

Interesting Stuff

• The “father of cognitive behavioral therapy” passed away at 100 [New York Times]

• How humming helps with anxiety [Inc]

• 100 days of rejection [TedX]

• Microworkouts throughout the day offer a potential replacement to the gym [Mark’s Daily Apple]

• A guide to blue light and sleep [The Mattress Nerd]

• What to do if you absolutely have to concentrate [Better Homes and Gardens]

• A blog with a lot of summaries of self-help books [Muthus Blog]

• 10 tips for self improvement and motivation [Coursera]

• A timeline of scientific discoveries on memory [Science Focus]

Research

• Zinc improves the efficiency and quality of sleep [research]

Social

• How to condition yourself - an alternate method for self discipline [Reddit]

• How to deal with morning anxiety [Reddit]

• Why you should train both concentration and vipassana in meditation [Reddit]

• 3 ways to train deep focus [Reddit]

• Why social media is so addictive [Reddit]

• 20 scientific methods to boost creativity [Reddit]

• 5 reasons meditation is so difficult to practice [Reddit]

• How to start a basic and consistent meditation practice {Reddit]

Miscellaneous and Esoteric

• Qi skipping

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings September 2021

The majority of this past month was dedicated to finishing up a book on my city, Houston, due out in 2022. Lydia and I spent an inordinate amount of time running around town and researching everything, and though it’s been really fun (and educational in so many ways), it has distracted me from this project.

I also started another Finder’s Course challenge (this time a full 3 months), a course that claims a 70% enlightenment rate. It’s a bold claim, but it did help me reach new highs and exposed me to many techniques I hadn’t heard of before. It also forced me to do techniques I had, for whatever reason, ignored in the past. I’ve already reached some really interesting states, and would like to try to record them using some biofeedback-style devices.

With the manuscript in, I hope to really focus on this site this month - I’ve got a lot of backlog to publish.

Interesting Stuff

• An interview with Dr. Roy Baumeister, by Giovanni Dienstmann, whose work on meditation I really like [Live & Dare]

• Would Plato Tweet? The Ancient Greek Guide to Social Media [BBC}

• If Shinzen Young were to teach one focus technique, what would it be? [Tricycle]

• Training like a Kenyan runner [Tracksmith]

• The “Protégé Effect” — how teaching people is a better way to learn [Time]

• A guide to studying more effectively [Psyche]

Research

• Evidence for team flow states [article | research]

• Old research on how Sponge Bob negatively impacts executive functioning in children [article]

• Structured problem solving to promote sleep [research]

• Meta study on which anti-worry strategies work best [article | research]

• Different types of affirmations work differently - interrogative questions can work better [research]

• Hand gestures used by instructors can help students mentally organize information better [article | research]

Social

• Tips on how to write better essays [Reddit]

• How to deal with nocturia (the need to urinate in the middle of the night) [Reddit]

• How to use meditation to help with social anxiety [Reddit]

• The lazy man’s guide to meditation practice [Reddit]

• How to deal with feelings of unworthiness [Reddit]

• How to train meditation closer to reality [Reddit]

• How to make challenges more effective [Reddit]

Miscellaneous and Esoteric

• A course on bioelectric qigong

• The most recent Critical Mind, Embodied Spirit podcast -” What on Earth is Qigong?”

Monthly Musings August 2021

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

I took a lot of time off this month and felt super burned out.

Nevertheless, I finally got around to formalizing a morning and bedtime routine. Building off a lot of previous experimentation and behaviors I’ve implemented regarding sleep, I saw these habits as the last few necessary additions. As a result, I find myself tentatively becoming a morning person - naturally, without alarms, waking up at around 6:30 am - 7 am. Not super hardcore “5 am mornings” but as a lifelong night owl, that’s a huge change, and it’s one that stuck through one of those inevitable life interruptions - my first flight (a visit to Seattle) since the start of the pandemic.

Lydia has also really been getting into periodization and running, which had me contemplating what such a program would look like in other fields, like meditation. I feel it provides a bird’s eye view of what a robust training paradigm should look like on the path to mastering any skill.

Interesting Stuff

• Hedonic Calendaring. A method to connect planning with flow states

• How to counter online distraction with meditation [The Guardian]

• The secret to hosting well [NPR]

• You don’t have to be an Olympian to prioritize mental health [NPR]

• What does good sleep actually mean and what factors affect it [Honeybee]

• How to get good at running [Reddit]

• Interoception, the hidden sense that shapes wellbeing [The Guardian]

Research

• The perfect vacation length is 8 days [article | research]

• Super-somnulent mental strategies - serial diverse imaging and cognitive shuffling. Some great research on how to fall asleep. [article | research | app]

• Sleep Restriction Therapy (SRT) [article]

• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Insomnia (ACT-I) [article]

Social

• How to become a morning person [Reddit]

• Why I don’t particularly like the idea of “stoner” meditation [Reddit]

• How meditation can practically help you in your career [Reddit]

• How to eliminate brain fog [Reddit]

• Tips on developing social skills [Reddit]

• How to change a habit when you can’t change a cue/trigger [Reddit]

• Why sleep hygiene should be fitted to the individual [Reddit]

• Meditating with ADHD - how to deal with mind wandering and difficulties establishing daily practice [Reddit]

Miscellaneous and Esoteric

• How watching old Disney movies can help us find quiet magic in our everyday lives [CBC Canada]

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings July 2021

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

This last month has mostly been about me confronting my severe burnout. I took about 2 weeks off to just focus on relaxing. That’s really hard for me to do, and I find very little specific advice on how to actually recover. There were many cases where I knew what I should do, but summoning the energy to do it was beyond me. I also feel there was a kind of map to recovery that I’d like to write about in a later post.

I’ve been digging into some great Youtube channels, like the Huberman Lab and Veritasium. I usually don’t have the time to watch an hour or more video doing deep dives, but time off has given me that opportunity which is great. They both put out fantastic content.

I also had some great conversations. One was on sleep with a friend who takes a very different approach to self help than I do. His background is in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and he had me looking up a different approach to overcoming sleep onset latency than I need to test out (linked below). I’ve appeared as a guest on his podcast and you can check him out here or here.

Interesting Stuff

• On eye health (Huberman Lab)

• On learning (Veritasium)

• Soft fascination (Medium’s Elemental)

• Why stopping your thoughts doesn’t work but how one strategy might (Bulletproof Musician)

• The four day work week has been an overwhelming success in Iceland (BBC)

• 42 scientifically proven ways to improve mood (Reddit)

• Learning styles are a myth (Veritasium)

• The dark side of motivation (The Quintessential Mind)

• Does drinking lettuce water really help you sleep (Vice)

• The Huberman Lab on sleep - there’s a particularly interesting research on how viewing sunsets can help prevent the negative effects of other forms of light at night. I’ve emailed him and am still trying to track down that research (Huberman Lab)

Research

• Personality systems interactions theory

• ART (Attention Restoration Therapy) - a systematic review

• Transcranial and mastoid stimulation for better sleep - 1 2 3

• The effect of rocking movements on sleep

• The effect of eye exercises and pranayama on visual reaction time

Social

• How to teach yourself things. This is my most popular comment yet, making it onto r/bestof. I briefly go over habits, plateau busting, mental game, accelerated learning, and how to ask experts for advice. (Reddit)

• Julia Cameron’s concept of morning pages (Instagram)

• A theory on how to consciously force yourself to enjoy something (Reddit)

• How some games can improve mindset (Instagram)

• Researched methods (at least 16) that allow you to come up with good ideas (Reddit)

• How to stop being pessimistic (Reddit)

• How to stop staying up so late (Reddit)

• How to use meditation to improve discipline (Reddit)

Miscellaneous and Esoteric

• A guide to binaural beats

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings June 2021

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

This last month has been pretty quiet. My massive multi-month eating test to see what effects me the most has turned up very little as I continue to plateau. But upon reflection, I realized that most of my weight loss was historically tied to times I got a lot of sunlight. That not only got me researching sunlight’s effects on leptin, vitamin D, cortisol, insulin, and weight loss, but also into sleep and creating a better morning and nighttime routine. It might also effect muscle injury repair (I’ve been doing a ton of mobilizing for two tweaked joints). A recent blood test confirmed that I’m severely deficient in vitamin D.

I’ve also been putting together a test for “falling in love with the process”. My theory is that just as psychological mechanisms encourage behaviors to becoming habits, reverse engineering processes I love might help me fall in love with other actions, even those I don’t particularly like. The first step I need is a metric and luckily there has been some really interesting research in that area.

Lastly, I’ve been digging into information theory and data compression in computing. Data compression tries to solve the issues with compacting files, and I hope it can provide insights to productivity problems - like those I’m encountering with planning. It might be a long shot, but so much detailed work went into computing which I feel could be applied to issues that are far more personal.

What’s New

• Filmed an Instagram Live with Harshad Manglani of the What Works for You podcast, ostensibly on planning and Stoicism, though we ended up going on several interesting tangents

• Recorded another podcast on getting better sleep with Nate Sleger of Begin Within

• Started a Pinterest page

Interesting Articles

• Kill the 5 day work week (The Atlantic)

• Is a verbal or visual pep talk better? (Bulletproof Musician)

• How to sit in full lotus for meditation (Yoga Journal)

• A way to fuel compassion practice (Reddit)

• How to find flow while working from home (CNBC)

• The new science of “fatigue resistance” (Outside)

Research

• Measuring the parasympathetic nervous system using Heart Rate Variability

• Pink noise might boost learning (Bulletproof Musician)

• What is “slow wave” sleep?

• Improvisation is similar to sleep (article | study)

• Listening near bedtime promotes “earworms” that disrupt sleep (article | study)

• A detailed pilot study on aromatherapy

• “Diffused mode” thinking

• Laughter primes creativity (article)

Social

• How to form a daily routine (Reddit)

• Admiral McRaven’s “make your bed” strategy (Instagram)

• An experiment - can you form a habit in a day? (Pinterest)

• A guide on how to increase focus (Reddit)

• Interleaved practice (Instagram)

• 4 triggers of alcohol cravings to watch out for (Pinterest)

• How to get to sleep faster (Instagram)

• 10 techniques for overcoming negative emotions (Pinterest)

• The science behind compassion and laughter (Instagram)

Miscellaneous and Esoteric

• Mirror neurons might be the biological building block of compassion

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings May 2021

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

This last month I was traveling, stopping in San Antonio, Albuquerque, and in the Texas Hill Country for about 3 weeks. I took my new weight set, and promptly injured my knee and shoulder, so I’ve been doing and learning a lot about mobilizing and proper form for both body parts. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to deliberately fall in love with activities - even ones you hate. I’m also curious if passionate activities can act as a better class of breaks during the work day, and hope to start a few experiments on that. 

I’ve been reading about tantra, and found what I think is an excellent book on the subject - Christopher Wallis’ Tantra Illuminated. Tantra is the most fascinating form of emotional regulation I’ve found. It’s the one that has had the most impact on me day-to-day, and one that actually uses negative states to fuel the process. I’ve also been looking more into data analytics, A.I., machine learning, and evolutionary algorithms. I think the way those systems work could have a huge impact on experiments in self development. 

Interesting Articles

• Parkinson’s Law suggests that we naturally fit projects to finish in the time we assign them, which seems to fly in the face of a lot of issues I’m running into with advanced planning. But Cal Newport’s got it covered in a detailed rebuttal (CalNewport.com)

• Reading fiction improves the brain. Research suggest that it boosts empathy, improves verbal abilities, positively effects moral values, changes brain structure, provides inspiration, and surprisingly boosts social skills (The Emotion Machine)

• A discussion on the Batman Effect (BBC)

Research

• Different meditation styles effect creativity differently (study)

Experiments and Things I’m Looking Into

• Genetic Algorithms - a class of evolutionary algorithms inspired by biological systems to come up with faster solutions to problems using mutation, crossover, and selection operators. To me, this method shares a lot with complex lifestyle issues with many variables - like sleep, depression, planning, and weight loss. Finding the right set of key variables quickly is important, and self-development could greatly benefit from this type of approach.

• Forme - clothing backed by science that automatically and unobtrusively trains better posture.

Social

• A theory on how to mechanically fall in love with any activity, even ones you dislike (Reddit)

• Roald Dahl and how to meditate better (Instagram)

• How to regain focus across a day (Reddit)

• Started stacking elements - described two techniques, The Flash Diet and Tiny Habits (Instagram)

• Why itches are a gateway to enlightenment (Reddit)

• Started my Big List of Emotional Regulation exercises, including gratitude and mental realty (Instagram)

• How to actually train mental visualization ability (Reddit)

• Awkward Turtle Meditation, or how to train meaningful social endurance (Instagram)

• How create a routine when every day is different (Reddit)

• The problem with sleep clinics (Reddit)

• How to deal with sleep anxiety (Reddit)

Miscellaneous & Esoteric

• How to learn a cross cultural skill in the internet age. Alex, a popular food blogger, tries to learn how to use a wok in a professional kitchen. He can’t find much on YouTube, which is his go-to for skills. So he embarks on an epic quest to to find teachers demonstrating the nuances on a Chinese streaming site. What I like is how it’s like an updated version of Tim Ferriss’ The 4 Hour Chef as a metaphor for learning anything. I like the detail he’s going after in order to really learn the skill - he has to figure out searching in a different language and then zone in on the little things that he’s after. It’s definitely a video to pattern when launching into online learning in general.

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Monthly Musings April 2021

In this column I share articles, books, research, and thoughts related to the science of self-help, along with experiments and random rabbit holes I’ve gone down across the previous month.

This last month was all about podcasts. Three podcasts I had previously recorded were released. It was a fun experience and I hope to do more in the future. I also got a chance to talk to several app developers who reached out to me, including one trying to fuse behavioral science with planning, and another using artificial intelligence to combat smoking and eating issues.

I completed a massive 5 month experiment on fusing dog training and Stoicism. In addition I experimented with “floating” habits and another attempt at forming a habit in a day. I started weight lifting again after getting a full weight set and used sets as breaks from work. I completed a month of vegetarianism (ovo-lactose pescatarianism), sketched out a method to fall in love with habits using ritual and mindfulness, and attempted tantric drawing based on an article on aphantasia. More details on all of that below:

What’s New

• An interview with my My First Step Ever on how you can create lasting change to achieve your goals (Youtube | Spotify)

• An in-depth podcast with Critical Mind, Embodied Spirit on the science of self-help and my Elements of Change (Spotify)

• A chat with Nate at the Begin Within Podcast on how to stay motivated in making big changes (Youtube | Spotify)

Interesting Articles

• Aphantasia (inability to visualize mental images) doesn’t mean a lack of imagination (Psyche)

• The science behind intuition (A Life of Productivity)

• Self-help is a form of magical thinking (Aeon)

• The science of fatigue resistance (Outside)

Research

• How to train yourself to find disgusting things less gross (study)

• How to take the sting out of negative experiences (study)

• Targeted dream incubation and engineering dreams (study)

Experiments and Things I’m Looking Into

• Lumme - an app on smart watches that uses AI and wrist gestures to combat vices

• End of 5 months of attempting to clicker train Stoicism using reframes

• Month 8 of progressive food testing. This month I went vegetarian. Despite looser adherence, it’s successfully leading to weight loss. Or it might be the weight lifting.

• Experiment with a “floating habit” - the idea is that triggers pinned at a certain action in a day (like waking up) are inherently flawed. Eventually, skill based habits will need to move, either to accommodate advancement or classes or group activities, etc. Pinning a behavior on a unique alarm of some kind allows greater agility. I can move it without having to reestablish triggers - it might even make it adjustable to other life interruptions like travel.

• Another experiment in trying to create a habit in a day. A lot of learning occurs out to sleep - get more sleep and learning seems to improve. Noa at Bulletproof Musician theorized that if you just took a nap in the middle of the day you might be able to double up learning. What if the same thing occurs when creating a habit? In this experiment (I’ll write about it in detail soon) I added a long nap to the previous protocols.

Social

• A massive list of mental exercises to pick yourself up faster when emotions are weighing you down (Reddit)

• Rituals, the last of my original 31 Elements of Change (Instagram)

• A theory of behavioral Stoicism (Reddit)

• Stacking Elements - or reverse engineering addictive behaviors and common productivity techniques (Instagram)

• How exactly mindfulness helped my depression (Reddit)

• Using mindfulness to scroll social media (Reddit)

• How to condition yourself to become obsessed (Reddit)

• What is the core meaning of tantra? (Reddit)

• What is the best pranayama routine before bed (Reddit)

Miscellaneous & Esoteric

• Tantric drawing. According to this article on aphantasia, people who cannot visualize mental images aren’t necessarily less creative. In fact, they might appear more creative if they have to use drawn visuals as an aid. Tantric meditation is my go-to meditation practice when I’m feeling particularly low, yet it’s often hard to start and teach. But what if you could draw it out, using sketching as a beginning step? I tried this on a bad day and it worked out really well.

• Resiliency meditation. This month I attempted a more in-depth form of reframing. In reframing a simple phrase can be used to look at an experience in a different manner. This doesn’t always work if the feeling doesn’t change internally, especially if you’re already swirling into negativity. In this meditation I attempted to “pulse” the pure emotion of resilience. I used several pictures of various characters and figures who seem to embody this emotion in my mind to accrue the feeling of resilience, like with compassion meditation. I then eventually started pulsing it on its own. My hope was that this would supercharge my Stoic dog training experiment.

• Attempted to reverse engineer the love of an action. I’ve talked to a lot of people on this, and it’s clear that it involves unique types of mindfulness. Connoisseurs do this by using technical terminology and comparison - they actively appreciate small details, and learn the stories and history behind an action. I attempted to refine the process and started trying to apply it to mundane activities and things I don’t really like.

• The CIA declassified files on experiments on how to rapidly get into deep states of meditation quickly. I’m still in the process of checking all of this out.

If you’ve got any interesting links, books, comments, or suggestions, shoot me an email at scienceofselfhelp (at) gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!