Detox is a pseudoscientific concept.
Mental Wealth
161–170 of 262 posts
Re: Mental Wealth
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As an Army guy with a family embarking on his fifth overseas deployment Seen any riots in Iraq? What did you think the Arab Spring was? (Conversely I suspect the people in the protests are almost certainly all politically engaged and at least vote. The previous political engagement of BLM has not achieved anywhere near the same results as the protests have. The protests appear to be the only way to get police charg…
Having been there I can honestly tell you it isn’t the same. The conditions are very different. No matter how bad things get in the US there is still a very large gap between US conditions and those that would drive people to self-immolation.
Relative deprivation will do the trick. Double the prices of essential goods in the US overnight, and watch how fast a revolt forms, and what violence it will resort to if it meets resistance. Nevermind that everyone here'd still be very well-off by global standards—they'll hang the politician who doesn't give in to their demands, anyway.
Re: Mental Wealth
#163Recently I had an epiphany and I felt as if I had cracked the code to living a good life - 1. Exercise everyday 2. Eat and drink clean. As cliche as it sounds it felt like if I took care of these two things, everything else will take care of itself. Since last 15 days, I feel reinvigorated once again as I focus on these two things. There is a long way to go to fully undo all the damage, but I feel I am on track.
All good things! I would also say that STRESS KILLS. It has real physical harm to the body. I love working in high-stress situations but it has taken a long time to learn how to make stressful situations not stress me out. Finally, find meaning in the things you do even if they are not 'meaningful things'.
There a physiological reason for that. Look at the resource requirements for the brain relative to the rest of the body.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain#Metabolism
As mental health deteriorates the consumption of resources required by the brain can fall out of rhythm to the detriment of the rest of the body.
Re: Mental Wealth
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain more about keeping your public identity small but your private identity large? Does that just mean not trying to do your own personal branding so people can find you on the internet? Or is it more about "everyone that I care about, aka local people, should know about me - that's my private identity". I'm curious, as an American born and someone who's continually trying to learn about other cultures.
Not OP, but his post reminded me of a Paul Graham article [0] about keeping your identity small. [0] http://paulgraham.com/identity.html
In this age of social media I think this can't be stressed enough.
Re: Mental Wealth
#165Detox is a pseudoscientific concept.
Re: Mental Wealth
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Politicians think that riots are the problem and if they stop the riots with force the problem goes away. But riots are just a symptom of a sick system. No the system and other systemic or social problems are just a excuse. Riots, at least those in recent events are an example of contagious social behavior. That is evidenced by the fact that the blamed issues have been known problems for longer than two weeks with…
> emotional hysteria Sensitive people like you make me sad. [from your own bio] To me labelling people who collectively rise up against systemic domination as 'emotional hysteria' is just the epitome of cruelty. #blacklivesmatter
I don't like the framing of the behavior as somehow irrational or random or clinically-diagnosible. It's not irrational to get involved more in a movement when it is a movement, and seems like it might be gaining traction. Just like it's not irrational to not-boycott some useful, cheap product even if you strongly disagree with some of the practices that go into its production, but to join a boycott if it starts and seems to be gaining traction. In fact, it's less rational and more tied up with self-image than with utility to do the former—and even so it doesn't mean that people who do things like solo-boycotts are wrong, or bad, or misguided, at all.
[EDIT] to put it another way, there's a cost to political action. That a lot of people might see that cost WRT anti-police-brutality protests as lower, and the benefit it yields higher, this week than they did two weeks ago, and so be willing to participate, is not "emotional hysteria". Not that nothing that could be described as that has been involved at any point in the process, but that seems reductionist to the point of being very wrong as a characterization for the overall movement.
Re: Mental Wealth
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the book he describes the ways modern life has disconnected us from a lot of what humans find meaningful, and given that it's not surprising that rates of depression and anxiety have skyrocketed. Yeah. See Yvain's excellent review of "Empire of the Summer Moon": All of the white people who joined Indian tribes loved it and refused to go back to white civilization. All the Indians who joined white civilization ha…
Isn't this literally describing the noble savage? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage
This is the Noble Savage. There's a grain of truth in there, though, hunter-gatherer societies in a resource-rich environment have plentiful access to a varied diet and are in excellent physical shape. But there is continuous war between neighbours over these resources (just because you can, everyone is well-fed and healthy). So, yes, people lived well and had fun while doing so.
Re: Mental Wealth
#168This article spills a lot of ink to say that you should focus on your Sleep, Diet, Exercise, Stress, and Drugs in that order. It provides a few tips for each topic:
1) Sleep
Tip: "my biggest pro-tip [...] wake up every morning at the same time"
2) Diet
Tip: "Get your food allergens checked and make sure you’re not consuming foods that your allergic to on a regular basis (I used Everlywell.com for their at home food allergy test recently, and it was great)."
Tip: "Consuming multiple alcoholic drinks before bed can absolutely wreck your sleep, which is the first foundation to mental wealth."
3) Exercise
"I’m going to zero in on the anti-inflammatory effects of high intensity aerobic exercise 3 times a week (which incorporates improvement to mood, detoxification, and anti-inflammation). [...] this is all about using a stair-master or elliptical, cycling, or high intensity running for anywhere from 15-30 minutes, etc. 3x per week. Cycling has been shown to be superior to running for the aerobic effects, so I use our family’s Peloton for 20 min HIIT rides at least 3x a week, preferably more. [...] Try this for 4 weeks and see what it does for your mental health (and your sleep)."
4) Stress Management
Tip: "[find] time to sit quietly for 15 minutes in the morning, with your cup of coffee or tea in-hand, to do three primary things has been extremely helpful for me:
(i) Gratitude journaling of 5 things that I’m grateful for (nothing is too small here, from the sunrise to the laugh of my daughter will make the list),
(ii) 2-3 minutes of breathing exercises (google 4-7-8
breathing for a really simple breath work exercise),
(iii) Lastly, 5 minutes outline my to do list for the day."
5) Exogenous Compounds
Tip: "any of these, from the innocuous to the Schedule II prescription, should be last on the list of your personal “mental wealth” audit."
Re: Mental Wealth
#169This.Post.Is.Gold.
It's now been a few years after my burnout/depression episode and finally someone put my thoughts into words.
I came into the same conclusion after learning about depression, doing therapy, and among other things/research/trying things.
So I refused to take pills, but instead make a lifestyle change. I also started developing Habinator app (see: habinator.com), which is a tool to help to make a change.
I'm glad that there are professional smart people who see the bigger picture in (mental) health and not the short term fix. It would be great if the decision makers and people with money would also see this.
Re: Mental Wealth
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you explain more about keeping your public identity small but your private identity large? Does that just mean not trying to do your own personal branding so people can find you on the internet? Or is it more about "everyone that I care about, aka local people, should know about me - that's my private identity". I'm curious, as an American born and someone who's continually trying to learn about other cultures.
Not OP, but his post reminded me of a Paul Graham article [0] about keeping your identity small. [0] http://paulgraham.com/identity.html
This is an interesting idea, but I wonder to what extent this view is only possible for people who aren't explicitly persecuted for their identity. How can you keep your "identity" small if it's written on your skin or on your marriage documents? Should these people simply disassociate from their identities?
I think as a general principle it's probably good to minimize your public-facing identity, however, the reductionism and broad generalization make this argument much weaker and misses the point about why people get so upset about identity.