The Science of Self-Help

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Day 336 & Pushing Protocols

Day 336 Record Keeping
Day 305 Fixed Meditation 
Day 251 Bodyweight Exercise  (1 full wall walkdown and walkup bridge)
Day 178 Writing (159 words)
Day 351 Eating = 70
Day 108 Work = 52
Good sleep, good wakeup. 

Pushing Protocols
Now that I have a few days between trips and am gradually getting over my sickness, I’ve noticed there are definitely some protocols I want to update.

For fixed meditation I want to start recording different types of meditation and then cycling through them - vipassana, tantric, anchoring, and single pointed meditation (I really should go into a detailed description of these). After recently reading Dan Harris’ book, 10 Percent Happier, which reaffirmed my belief in the power of meditation, I really want to push this habit to prevent myself from falling into laxity. Another fantastic book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book by Daniel Ingram, really emphasizes how easy it is to fail to achieve mastery while still having a regular habit. Strong habits do not equal mastery - it’s a great first step, but you gotta keep pushing.

For my eating habit, I want to start transitioning into clean refeeds. What I’ve been doing so far is not caring at all when I’m sick. I do this because I worry about being carb depleted and I know that carbs are a key component to willpower.

But during this sickness I get this sensation that I don’t really need to do that. I should definitely be eating carbs like rice or potatoes, and that might be a better strategy. The real thing is that when I cheat, I feel horrible, and it  has become more and more noticeable nowadays. So that mental component, of avoiding that bloat, really helps to stabilize my eating habit during breaking points like travel and sickness.

Lastly, I want to try an experiment regarding my work habit. I’ve talked about Pavlovian training for this, but I really want to crank it up - I try to do 2 hours of work, and my minimum is 20 minutes to keep up the habit. I’m curious what will happen if I link the action to a certain sound and do it 4 times a day.

My theory is that I will increase the speed of this habits formation - which would be nice because it has been floundering for a while now.