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Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

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Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#231

Post by pacala »

ryanlm wrote: post #208
ljk wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what kind of fasting did you do?

Just not eating for 2 days. It would throw of my "rhythm" and I would overeat for days until it balanced out again. Maybe my appetite is larger than most people.

Not a doctor and sample size of one.

What worked for me was resetting the rhythm itself, by under-eating over long periods of time, 2 weeks at least, up to 1-2 months. I keep telling myself hungry is the new normal, and in the long run it becomes the new normal. Under-eating is not even that hard if one goes mostly veggie, that is eat fruits / veggies / eggs / cheese / yoghurt / fish and skip sugar / meat / pasta / bread / rice / deep fried *. Few more tricks: always have a bottle of water nearby, take time to have a meal [15 minutes latency for full signal to propagate to the brain], snack lightly on fresh fruits, veggies and yoghurt along the day [never go crazy hungry].

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#232

Post by ovatsug25 »

BatFastard wrote: post #227

Getting regular deep tissue massages. It does a reset on all the little aches and pains I build up during long work sessions. I stopped for a few years and I started again and it was a "Wow, I forgot how much I need these" moment. Daily exercise, forgot about this for years. I think more clearly, feel better during the day, sleep better at night. Home cooking, so easy to lose this joy when busy. Swimming in the water…

Seconding this one. Focusing on stretching and mobility is the BIG one for me.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#233

Post by TeMPOraL »

mason240 wrote: post #151
ChuckMcM wrote: post #122

How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtua…

I had a similar epiphany when I started to learn programming (I was about 27 at the time). I realized I was spending all my time just incrementing numbers in a server. Since then I've dropped almost all gaming, reducing it to about 4 hours a week of phone games and shifted to doing outdoor activities like running, biking, ect. PokemonGo has been a way to meld the two.

A similar revelation made me start hating most webdev jobs - after all, all you're doing is writing yet another way of storing bunch of strings in a database.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#234

Post by hargup »

carlesfe wrote: post #44

Exercise, though others have said that. Personally, I'd say that the thing that changed my life for the best has been Not Giving Tech Support. When I was a teenager I was kinda miserable because some people abused me for tech support. You know, it's nice to give favors, but at some point you're fed up of reinstalling every computer in your block every 6 months. People stop you on the streets and the first thing they…

Because most of the people around me are on Windows, I simply say "I don't know your operating system, if you were on (GNU/)Linux I could have helped".

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#235

Post by bbcbasic »

benologist wrote: post #182
ChuckMcM wrote: post #122

How about stopped doing? There was a weekend where I had spent close to 20 hours playing World of Warcraft to farm materials and reagents for the epic engineering mount. After I had finished it, and spent the requisite time showing it off in-game, I looked around and realized that all of thrill of lifelong learning and making things in the "real" world has been subsumed when all my spare time was consumed in a virtua…

I stopped using my computer after 9pm, that was hard but it makes a huge difference later when I go to sleep!

I've stopped using my body and brain after 9pm other than for vital functions.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#236

Post by johndevor »

OhHeyItsE wrote: post #143
chollida1 wrote: post #126

3 things for me: 1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. 2) Sleep, I'm getting close to 40 and the last 2 times I pulled all nighters I ended up deleting pretty much all the code I wrote from 11pm onward. 3) Occasional Fasts. I normally fast from 6pm until noon the next day but I now do one 3 day fast each month. I think th…

Any meditation tips? I've gone through multiple fits & starts but I just can't keep my mind from wandering.

This may sound simple, but what's worked well for me is to "boomerang" (i.e. return this email again tomorrow morning) myself an email every morning reminding me to meditate for 20 minutes.

It works well with my procrastinating mindset because, even if I miss a day, I never do not boomerang the email to myself. It's important to learn to forgive yourself if you miss a day, which is why it works for me.

I also always zero my inbox which means I can't miss the email.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#237

Post by chris11 »

Harelin wrote: post #211

When I am working on something and need to break for the day, I try to stop at a point where I am enthusiastic about continuing (i.e. not experiencing writer's block or confused as to how to proceed). This means I will be able to pick up the next day write where I left off, immediately get back into the flow of things, and I will look forward to doing it.

I've also heard that it's a good idea to stop at a point where there are some very easy things that you need to do, even if you might need to introduce some errors to get to that point.

For instance if you were writing a paper, and hadn't ran spelling/grammar check for awhile leaving that as the first thing you need to do the next time you start work would be a good idea. That's an easy fix that doesn't require much thought, but gives you the immediate feedback of getting something done.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#238

Post by k-mcgrady »

ashwn wrote: post #177
OhHeyItsE wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any meditation tips? I've gone through multiple fits & starts but I just can't keep my mind from wandering.

Try a guided meditation app like Calm or Headspace.

FWIW I find vipasana (just focusing on your breathing) so much more effective than those apps, particularly Headspace. Calm with a little background noise and timer is fine. But with Headspace I don't see how anyone can meditate effectively when the guy is talking to you the entire time. Especially when he counts your breaths occasionally and your counting is out of sync with his.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#239

Post by curiousgal »

Good diet. I've been underweight for years! Thought it had to do with genes or fast metabolism but turns out I was just a lazy person. Started cooking meals and stopped skipping them, it was hard at first because it's easier to skip dinner than to go out shop for groceries and make something. The effort has been worth it!

I've been studying for the CCNA and I've been having that moment ever since I started, there's so much to cover and so little time.

Re: Ask HN: What was your “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment?

#240

Post by davej »

andrepd wrote: post #217
chollida1 wrote: post #126

3 things for me: 1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. 2) Sleep, I'm getting close to 40 and the last 2 times I pulled all nighters I ended up deleting pretty much all the code I wrote from 11pm onward. 3) Occasional Fasts. I normally fast from 6pm until noon the next day but I now do one 3 day fast each month. I think th…

Not a hippie, but you do meditation and fasts... Okay, that came out a bit incisive. Do you have any scientific backing to support those claims? I'm especially interested in fasting. Not eating for 3 days a month does not seem especially healthy. Then I see the claim that it cures cancer and forgive me if all my alarm bells go off.

> Do you have any scientific backing to support those claims?

Not OP but this is a good summary: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946160/

> Then I see the claim that it cures cancer and forgive me if all my alarm bells go off.

I think OP was implying that it may decrease your chances of getting cancer not cure it. Everyone will get cancer if they live long enough (based on the current state of medicine, that may change in the future).

edit: I should say that personally I don't really practice intermittent fasting (at least not consciously). But I don't eat after 8pm either, so I tend to do at least a 12 hour fast every day because of that. Sometimes I also skip breakfast which makes it a 16-18 hour fast. My biggest meal of the day is usually lunch not dinner.

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