The Science of Self-Help

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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

RESEARCH

  • Daytime napping vs cramming [study]

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

  • Studying consciousness without content [paper]

SOCIAL

MISCELLANEOUS & ESOTERIC

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!