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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?

#701

Post by chii »

LA_Banker wrote: post #591
rdegges wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% Being healthy is great and all, but you know what's REALLY fucking awesome? Feeling confident and not being afraid to just be a person. I can't tell you how many times I used to sit at home alone feeling bad for myself, vs now: I don't have the same fear. It's so much healthier (mentally) to be proud of yourself and just not worry about the way you look (or feel afraid of being judged by people) constantly.

I couldn't agree more. I think if everyone just got to experience this dramatic difference, even briefly, there'd be no obesity epidemic.

I wonder if the effect is a causal relationship, or just correlated. If you are the type of person that can be disciplined to work out every week, then you may just be able to train your self confidence. It's not that working out gives you it.

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

#702

Post by tudorw »

icebraining wrote: post #350
tudorw wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's guess how much money has been spent investigating the possible benefits of meditation, compared to the research funds available for commercially exploitable therapies, I'm guessing it's probably similar to that spent on sleep, in relative terms, zero, what's the point of a commercial organisation showing something free has health benefits?

Who said it must be a commercial organization? Public universities and non-profit institutes do plenty of research.

Do they, care to cite some research on sleep or meditation?

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

#703

Post by shoo »

durin42 wrote: post #663
cbowal wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the default assumed 7% interest

That's pretty standard as the assumed interest rate for investing in index funds over a long period.

The figure of long-term 7% real returns is accurate assuming a 60-40 stock bond portfolio, averaged over around 100 years of US stock market. This estimate does not include the information about the current over or under valuation of the stock.

However, if you start investing now, in 2016, not at some average starting time in the past 100 years, note that the US stock market is over-valued according to the CAPE metric. As well as average real returns of 7%, historical data also makes a strong case for CAPE valuation being a good predictor of expected market returns over the following 10 years.

If your long-term forecast takes the additional information of the current over-valuation of the US stock market into account, the 10-year forecast of expected real returns for a 60-40 stock bond portfolio is roughly 4-4.5%.

One fairly obvious way to mitigate this might be to over-weight your portfolio to focus on stocks that are currently regarded as under valued by the CAPE metric instead of simply investing according to current market capitalization weights.

Further details in this article from 2012 (things look slighly more over-valued 4 years later): http://www.researchaffiliates.com/Production%20content%20lib...

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

#704

Post by icebraining »

tudorw wrote: post #702
icebraining wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said it must be a commercial organization? Public universities and non-profit institutes do plenty of research.

Do they, care to cite some research on sleep or meditation?

Sure, I'll spare you the five minutes of web searches:

http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/192255_en.html

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866254/

http://sleep.stanford.edu/research/recent_publications.html

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/org/ncsdr/research/

http://www.pennstatehershey.org/web/psychiatry/research/over...

https://www.unisa.edu.au/Education-Arts-and-Social-Sciences/...

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.2016.25.issue...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27460004

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27429096

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

#705

Post by reitanqild »

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.

> Not eating for 3 days a month does not seem especially healthy.

I did this on and off (stopped eating Sunday after dinner and didn't eat until Wednesday or later in the week).

I was only 19 and 20 at the time and did it because I was bored but I remember feeling significantly more productive. Pretty sure I was but not sure if it had to do with a clearer head or because I suddenly had 1-2 extra undisturbed hours when everyone else was busy eating.

Stopped after an incident where I tried lifting weights after 2 days on a very restrictive diet and half a day with no calories at all. 15 minutes in I started seriously shivering and I never picked it up later although I am seriously tempted from time to time.

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

#706

Post by irickt »

mrfusion wrote: post #653
patio11 wrote: post #9

Every time I start seriously exercising this hits in about week ~4. Sadly, I only generally keep it up for 6 months before falling back to old habits. Professionally: email lists. If you have any reason to have a blog, you should have an email list. It surfaces the identities of the people who are actually interested in what you have to say, and ties people to you much, much tighter than "Oh yeah, that thing you wrot…

What happens in week 4?

His “why didn't I start doing this sooner” moment.

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

#707

Post by lerpa »

beat wrote: post #335
bg4 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does one fast for three days?

Simple. Don't eat. Drink water. Some people will allow juice on a fast.

Don't eat and you forgot a fundamental part of it: tell everyone else you meet that you're fasting.

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

#708

Post by orblivion »

spdustin wrote: post #179

Seeing a psychiatrist to be diagnosed with AD/HD and, later due to life circumstances, depression and anxiety. Seeing a developmental pediatrician for my son when he was younger to be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Seeing a rheumatologist to discuss ramifications of the HLA-B27 gene and the family history of spondylarthropathies. What's the common thread? See a doctor when you have any health concerns, phys…

How do you find a doctor who you trust?

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

#709

Post by dk8996 »

franciscojgo wrote: post #40

Joining a good Crossfit gym. I was usually skeptic to crossfit. Have been doing weightlifting and overall weight training for 2-3 years and was used to pushing myself at my own pace and setting goals myself. Was afraid to turn my training into a cookie-cutter group class and be forced to do movements that are outright dangerous. All the injury stories, the "cult" thing, etc. is all bullshit from my experience. No, yo…

I agree with everything you have said.

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

#710

Post by asenna »

geff82 wrote: post #507

For me, it was getting into IT when I was 30 (4 years ago) and for the first time in my life, I loved my work. I did not do it when I was 20, when was deeply into programming. Instead, I feared math in computer science studies, which led me to work as a car salesman (one that read HN all the time). When I was really broke and unhappy, I met a guy who introduced me into IT contracting for big companies. I just did wha…

> I met a guy who introduced me into IT contracting for big companies. I just did what he said and instantly landed a long term gig that quadrupled my income.

Would you mind sharing some of the tips the guy gave you? I'd be really interested. I'm doing small-time IT contracting but looking to grow the business.

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