I’m putting out a series of health optimizing rules as social media posts.
It’ll be easy, they said. Short and quick, they said.
Rule #1 was a quick Note: Walk every day.
Walking costs next to nothing — everyone has a road — improves all your parts that need sprucing up, and can scale from a meditative stroll to a soul-crushing ruck with a 60-pound pack.
It’s one thing that can positively affect many things, which never becomes obsolete regardless of your age or activity level.
That’s efficiency.
So, if we’re talking force multipliers, next on the list should be… STRESS RELIEF.
Having your inner calm be determined by you, instead of by random events and outside forces.
Eating fresh fruits and vegetables will be Rule #3.
But if you take back your inner calm, you’ll see positive results quicker than from exercise, diet, supplements, or meds — breathe right, for instance, and you can feel anxiousness relief within SECONDS.
Stress feels awful and impacts your health worse
Unlike blood pressure and cholesterol, you can feel when you’re really stressed.
Like something bad is coming, or that something complex and unpleasant is sitting on your shoulder, and growing.
Sometimes you know exactly what the source is, like money, the state of the world, bad family news, or worry about a medical diagnosis. Sometimes it’s hard to pin down; everything seems to be OK, but something is definitely off.
But you know stress when you feel it. And it has a ton of negative effects:
- Blood pressure rises
- Stress eating and weight go up
- Your immune system malfunctions
- Fat burning grinds to a halt (stress hormones oppose this at the cellular level)
- Decision-making gets poor, affecting everything
It’s a bad look, feeling oppressed, getting fat, developing chronic diseases, depending on Pharma, and making poor choices left and right.
Especially making poor choices
It’s like the classic example: “That guy? (Shaking head) He thinks with his d%ck.”
Someone driven to chase pretty young things is universally seen as being in a sad situation. He’s easy prey for anyone using a honey trap as a lure; all his good sense goes out the window.
Many people seek a refuge from stress in mind-numbing addictions: alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling. Some of that is genetic vulnerability, but a lot is plain stress avoidance.
Stress doesn’t sell; “sex sells.” You don’t want the ulcer, you want the antacid.
And there’s absolutely a business model for handing out both stress and pretty distractions.
It’s called social media and the mainstream news cycle.
MILLIONS TO BILLIONS of corporate resource dollars are spent in whipping up your stress levels and driving you to stare at your screen and scroll. Obsessively and for long periods of time.
So how do you ramp down your stress?
First and foremost: realize that the main driver of your peace of mind should be YOU.
Not “I’m okay because my mom is okay,” or my spouse, or child, or boss, or anyone else.
If your inner OK-ness COMPLETELY depends on the benevolence of others or The World, you are an empty beer can bouncing behind their car on a string.
Of course, you’re affected by the moods of those close to you, and the economy, politics, and technology.
But you get by.
You’ve always gotten by, despite a pandemic, Brexit, crypto, AI, and upheavals involving the Middle East, Russia, and your in-laws.
If you feel poopy about yourself because you set goals and didn’t do what you set out to do to achieve them, that’s on you. Feeling less than fully bueno is appropriate, as you dust yourself off and get back at it.
If you feel bad because today, someone decided to make your life miserable, that’s not on you. Neither is the weather, the value of crypto, or foreign affairs.
Significant shizz happens — the economy and politics are important, yes — and you respond.
There’s more shizz to come.
And the shizz isn’t you.
Doctors live this distinction every single day. You can care deeply about painful things, yet still function and take effective action.
You’re the juggler, not the balls.
Make deliberate choices about the information you consume
10 years ago, I would have told my patients to focus on meditation, breathwork, therapy, and yoga to neutralize their stress.
Now, it’s all about the Internet.
The era of it being no big deal, watching or listening to “whatever,” ended about 30 years ago — if it ever existed. Teachers warned about brain rot from watching too much TV even before the 1970s.
It’s 10,000 times worse now.
You are literally exposed to the most rapidly evolving-in-real-time marketing pressures in the history of humanity, every time you interact for even a second with a social media algorithm or platform.
The iterations it took to go from wild wolves to Pomeranians? Algorithms present you with curated, ad dollar-optimizing choices after that many cycles in about a minute.
Every minute.
And many of us spend more time on our smartphones than off. We are voluntarily saturating ourselves with machine-driven stimuli, purposefully designed to take advantage of our neurobiology to make money and shape influence.
And don’t forget: politics.
Among social groups of humans, the biggest prizes have always been who makes the rules and who holds the gold.
Algorithms and AI are amazing scary, but there are people behind that tech, vastly more influential than ever before, and your wellness is not their concern.
So, action items
This is a work in evolution, but attention in this space is not optional.
Remind yourself, you are the keeper of your peace of mind.
You are wading through a storm of data designed to pull you sideways.
Put yourself on a strict media diet, like 10 minutes a day, realizing that even then, it’s like saying you’ll “only” shoot up with high-grade heroin once a day, if the source is trying to capture your attention more than inform.
Get a liberal arts education; if the word liberal makes you cringe, put yourself through a classical education, read BOOKS, widely and often, and discuss the ideas with people of differing viewpoints, but whatever you call it…
Learn to think for yourself and not get hoodwinked.
Walk, frequently and often (see Rule #1, it works for stress, too).
Prioritize sleeping 7 hours minimum per night.
Consider adaptogen supplements, like magnesium threonate, L-theanine, and ashwaganda (discuss with your healthcare provider, and choose 3rd party tested vendors).
Practice a calming breathing reset, as many times a day as you walk.
Strongly consider seeing a therapist. If you would hire a personal coach early in the course of restarting intense physical activity, is your mind any less important and deserving of a 1:1 with a professional?
Oh, and have a goal. Work towards it, day by day, at least week by week. Something that you want to work on, not that someone else thinks you should work on.
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