An Answer to Vortex Forces and the Necessity of Relaxation

After work today I was incredibly stressed. 

I was done with the day of doing things and all I could think of was what more I should be doing. This is something I’ve had problems with many times in the past. As I thought more about what I should do, it became framed in my mind as something I should do. And since I didn’t have energy to actually do it, in my mind I felt like I had failed in the day.

Or in other words, I had excess energy, vortex forces were in effect which caused drag, collapsing into a depletion of willpower/endurance.

A long time ago I wrote about the necessity of finding hobbies. What I really need is any activity that relaxes me. Video games, reading, cooking, anything that can get me away from thinking about what, in my mind, needs to be done. Anything that gets me out of my head, where I’m constantly saying “ I need to be doing more.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger talks about this in his autobiography - that sometimes holding on too tightly can cause you to fail. 

Tonight I downloaded a video game. I got some Valerian root tea, initially to help with sleep, but it did relax me a lot. I cooked. And that was a good start.

I think that planning it out in advance is key. Usually I just start wasting time on reddit and looking up random stuff. Which is fine. It’s just for ME, that doesn’t get me off of the habit project. And not having readily available go-to’s doesn’t help.

Hobbies are great - but they have to be ones that I don’t want to include in this project. And that’s problematic, because I do want to do so much. Many things are “sticky” for me - they get me thinking immediately on how I can master them, and I think it’s why I’ve steered clear of so many. I need some that I can essentially throw away (I discuss this a bit here). 

Cooking seems to be one of those, but it can be very exhausting. Programming was actually super relaxing when I was following lessons on Code Academy. General learning on Khan Academy was also relaxing. Right before I started this project I took a lot of notes (I’ll have to look them up) on relaxing, and one thing I discovered was that I genuinely enjoy learning…it de-stresses me.

Having my mind off the project seems like it’s a huge key TO the project. That forgetting, the time off, actively knowing when enough is enough, seems to work to reduce this drag. And some people even seem to consider relaxation as a willpower manufacturing process.

In any case, it’s great to see old ideas, like this and my recent post on Pavel and Mircrocycling, come back into the fray once again.

Weekends Off?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the off time regarding this project. A lot of sources highly encourage things like taking weekends off to prevent to boost productivity for the week. Other sources also highly recommend increasing the value of time off with things like hobbies - Warren Buffet plays the ukelele, Bush oil paints, etc.

These are, perhaps, two separate issues but they’re only getting more distinct as I mull it over in my head. For weekends off, on one hand, it seems antithetic to my project. A habit is something you do automatically with regularity. Ideally that means every day because the more regular a task is the more (presumably) benefits you’ll reap. Automatic tasks don’t sap will, so why take weekends off?

There are some counters to this. Certain tasks are a pain to do and do take energy no matter if they are habits or not. The act of sitting down to write is automatic, but actually working through editing a text is hard. And presumably that’s because I’m not just executing a habit, I’m also working on a difficult skill, which does sap resources. 

It becomes more and more clear that all of this isn’t just 2 dimensional graph, it’s at least three dimensions with various phases. And rejuvenation may not just be needed for habituation, but it may well be needed for increasing in skill towards mastery.

So perhaps habits not yet in 70′s or 80′s can be dropped on the weekends. After all, the more I do a task, the more it gets to be a superhabit. But once it’s a superhabit, I’m on the skill/mastery track. Perhaps weekend habits can be maintained by doing something fun and easy - a fun bit of writing, a walk for working out, a pinterest safari for marketing, etc.

But another argument for weekends even while forming a habit comes from the SRHI. It’s pretty hard to gauge whether it feels weird NOT doing a habit if you’ve never not done it. A weekend away from habits can, at some point, be a proving ground for that feeling, gauging its strength.

The worry with all this is getting so exhausted that all of it collapses. I’ve been taking more weekends off in year 2, and I’m still wondering if it should be a part of my schedule. Definitely hobbies and regimentation and not worrying after work will help. But I have to wonder if this is another hole in the system I need to plug in.

Relaxation as Willpower

Self-Discipline in 10 Days has given me a lot to think about - it’s probably the best book on discipline I’ve ever read.

One small thing it did was equated relaxation with willpower.

Now, I have often thought about the relationship as indirect.

When I’m afraid I’m not relaxed. And when I’m afraid I cannot focus - it’s times like those where self-sabotage and procrastination really kick into high gear. By relaxing you are better able to think clearly - you clear the of fear, and you have enough wherewithal to make a decision to act.

I don’t know if relaxation really relates to more willpower in a scientific sense. Certainly a number of studies have showed, via depletion tests like unsolvable puzzles and Stroop tests that subjects tend to get tense and irritable.

But I don’t care - I think it’s just plain useful to think of relaxation as willpower because it means a lot of the stumbling blocks disappear when you use it to “summon” more will.

Using basic relaxation methods (a few deep breaths, relaxing tension points like jaw muscles and my shoulders) as an automatic method to combat times when I feel my will is being depleted works, and should be implemented along with other methods, like repleting blood sugar and watching funny youtube videos as a matter of course.