I felt I had to eat sweets frequently, drink coca-coca everyday and 3 meals a day etc. My body felt terrible when I didn't. I stopped listed to what my body wanted and consciously stop those things. First week it was really painful. Second week I got used to. Third week I completely changed. Now I have to force myself do eat sweets, drink soda or having so many meals a day.
I still listen my body about drink water and not sure if I should really listen it when it comes to sleep.
Now I mostly eat spinach, lentils, organic granola, yams, brown rice, occasional fish. Cognition is better, sleep is better, energy is higher. I don't personally believe the body can get used to processed foods, I think it's much more likely that one might simply forget what it felt like to eat a normal diet and feel regular all the time.
Sausages are processed foods, but they kept us alive over the winter. Salt pork anyone? Dried fish? Weevil-filled grains that hopefully stay dry during the winter and foods in root cellars.
I'll add that plenty of processed food is an absolute miracle. Frozen vegetables, for example. You weren't simply eating processed food. You were eating low-quality food that wasn't exactly healthy.
As well there is a lot of misinformation and pseudoscience miracle cure babble in nutrition. For a long time now, we have been sold that preserved/processed foods = bad. But we where also sold that butter was bad and to eat margarine. Come to find out, trans fats where worse and butter and olive oil are actually pretty healthy for us. We were sold that all fat are bad and to eat more grains and carbs, then we got an explosion in diabetes, heart disease and various other related ailments.
These, examples don't even get into the pseudo science "cure cancer with body ph diets" type snake oil being sold, as well as the other multitudes of quackery that exist to sell a book. The fat, sugar dynamics was considered settled science and was pushed hard by the American Heart Association, and the Cancer Foundation for decades. In my opinion, nutritional science and the big tobacco science debacle that was raging at the same time, did more to damage "sciences" credibility with the uniformed public than anything else.
The reality is there are processed and preserved foods that are really good for us, there are processed and preserved foods that are really bad for us. Just as there are fresh foods that are really not so good for such as Asparagus for women.
Honestly short of a a few really bad things, such as slim-jims, modern processed candy and candy bars, soft-drinks and processed juices, the real trick is balance and moderation. Food variety, calorie restriction and fasting will do more to preserve health than eliminating a certain type of food, because it has been deemed "unhealthy" by the current regime of nutritional pseudoscience.
You're talking about preserved food.
Processed food is made in giant boiler vats, with chemicals which we have not had in our environment for more than 50-80 years. Chemicals which were approved as "generally recognized as safe" several years before the same agency even admitted that tobacco was harmful to health. Which are proven carcinogens, mutagens, and irritants. If you compare this to salted sausage or sauerkraut, you're a fool.
Sausage is a highly processed food and definitely not good for you. Same for bacon. You can have highly processed food without chemicals: You can make processed cheese at home without the vats [1]. Not all "chemicals" are unnatural things that we didn't eat before, and some of the "chemicals" are preservatives, basically making them preserved foods.
We didn't really have frozen foods before refrigeration became common.
Bread in the 1800's wasn't very pure if you were buying the cheap stuff [2]. We weren't really eating "pure and natural" stuff before, and have been experimenting with different chemicals and things for eons. Some were fine (I'm guessing lutefisk isn't really bad for you despite the lye, same with pretzels), others weren't (lead whiteners, for example).
Just because one agency sees things as generally safe and has messed up doesn't mean all agencies have done this nor does it mean they are always wrong. Just like the fact that coke will clean battery terminals doesn't mean it is bad to have occasionally. Heck, eating lemons will destroy tooth enamel, but yet the juice will help keep scurvy away.
[1] https://youtu.be/qlJ30PGUk8Y [2] http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health1.html
And honestly, if you don't differentiate that you don't mean that stuff, there is no way for a reader to tell. Some people absolutely mean processed foods like smoked fish, canned/frozen vegetables, and the like.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Slim-Jim-Smoked-Original-24-Count/dp/....
Edited for spelling.
It is simply bad if the substances are proven carcinogens, mutagens, endocrine disruptors, and sterilizers.
Not to mention all the poison which is produced and dumped into our air and water producing this stuff.
Your slim jim example includes the following:
Corn Syrup: proven harmful to human/animal health
Soy Protein Concentrate: proven harmful to human/animal
Spices: what is this? nobody knows
Dextrose: proven harmful to human/animal health
Paprika Extractives: nobody knows how this happens
Flavoring: flavoring is not an ingredient, this ingredient is concealed from view, and cannot be trusted
Hydrolyzed Soy: proven harmful to animal/human health
Sodium Nitrite: proven carcinogen, mutagen, and harmful to micro-biome.
I think you were right to consciously remove those things from its access.
Sleep was always an essential part of the equation, however.
Try to imagine how you lived 10K years ago.
All the things you mention would indeed take priority, and we probably spent days sleep deprived at times, making up for it with extended long sleep when there was opportunity.
I think our lives were not nearly as difficult or demanding as some imagine, however, especially when you factor in the social and tribal factor. Sleeping in shifts would allow for plenty, attacks were not constant, especially with good shelter, and shelter only takes so long to construct, if that's necessary at all.
Remember, we started in an environment which provided everything we needed already, and one we were evolved for.
If you look at the lives of other apex predators like lions, bears, and eagles, their lives are pretty good in this respect, and their biggest threats are either their own species or humans.
Exercise and absence of artificial light would probably have us sleeping much more deeply and much more quickly
In modern hunter-gatherer societies there is also a lot of free time and play, so perhaps there would also be less stress to recover from at night
hyper-mindfulness and hyper-awareness is one of the best tools I've found to overcome them.
I think it's laughable, preposterous to call focus and flow a "disorder."
Whoever wants to call me being able to focus on a task at hand a disorder can stuff it up their butt.
But honestly, at least for me, the hyperfocus is not really that debilitating, it's the lack of being able to focus on anything mundane or boring, your mind will literally just not latch on and it's like pulling your hair out to continue to force yourself to try to mentally latch on.
This is where medicine comes in, specifically amphetamine based stimulants, which honestly are one of the real true success stories of modern mental health science. There are few other drugs in the mental health sector that have the efficacy of amphetamines and its ability to regulate the issues associated with ADD/ADHD.
So the problem with those of us that have attention disorders is our minds latch on hard to what we are interested in and just fog on the uninteresting parts. This leads to a few issues, one can be sloppiness, one just flubs over the details that they don't like, no follow thru is another big issue, so one starts a project does all the details they are interested in and then loses interest in the project. Avoidance of task until it becomes a big problem is another. As a note on the latter, for some tasks that one cannot focus on are almost physically painful and extremely stressful to even think about. Before I sought treatment a big one for me was just doing the dishes, I don't know what it is about dishes but I find it to be one of the most boring and mundane tasks you can do. So I would avoid it, until the sink hit critical mass, and then I had to drag myself kicking and screaming to the sink and in the processes I would get distracted by every single little thing. What should have been a 30 minute job would stretch out 2 to 3 hours while I found every other thing I could to distract myself in the kitchen. The whole time, I knew the dishes needed to be done, I knew as they where stacking up it would be easier to just deal with them now, and it would be worse later, it caused me a lot of stress knowing it was building, but yet I was locked in this pattern each and every week yet my pathological behavior never changed.
Now back to the medicine, ADD/ADHD medicine provides those of us that suffer from it, with the ability to turn on and off focus as well as allows us to remain focused on more mundane tasks. When I am on my medicine it is like I have the ability to turn hyperfocus on and off, on whatever subject I want to, it becomes like a superpower as well I am able to break that focus as it is not so compulsive. As a contrast, now I can be extremely focused on a task, realize that I am getting eye or wrist strain remind myself that I need a break, get up walk over to the sink and wash a few dishes as an activity to do while I take a breather. Where off the medicine, I am extremely single task focused, and have to drive that task to completion, any distractions from that single task are almost physically painful and stressful to even think about.
The way I always explained it, is it's like taking a road trip where all you focus on is the destination, you dream about the destination, you speed to get to the destination, you don't get off any exits until you are so low on gas that you can't ignore it, but in the end the destination was far less interesting than the trip to get there but you missed all that, because all you could do is focus on getting to the destination. With medicine you can still be extremely focused on the destination but realize that the sign of the roadside oddities and emporium at the next exit actually looks pretty cool and might be worth a slight detour. It allows you to see opportunities along the trip and view the trip as an experience in and of itself.
Thanks for the write-up!
by whose perspective?
Honest question: why? Are there studies that point to coloured urine as the cause of disease?
It's clear to me that coloured urine is associated with disease (since the body excretes waste products via urine), but not that it can be the cause of it.
PSA: Look before you flush, it's actually not a bad way to gauge general health.
It's the closest you can get non-invasively to looking inside yourself.
Though I don't think that we should just blindly recreate our ancient habits.
I've been told by a few wise people to wait to drink until I'm done trekking, by the way.
I don't think we should blindly do anything, and abandonining millions of years of evolution and wisdom especially.
I'm not sure what distance we are talking about but doing any kind of sport (even light exercise) you should start to drink after at most 1 hour.
If drinking wasn't necessary, long distance runners or athletes of other endurance sports wouldn't drink. You need to stay hydrated or you'll face fatigue, muscle problems and generally perform worse.
Trained athletes will be able to drink much less but that is because their bodies are more efficient, they still need to hydrate for maximum performance. The 1 hour rule isn't set in stone and you can go 3-4 hours without drinking but it has many drawbacks.
I've tried out several different approaches many times, and the best I've learned is to wait to drink when resting, no sipping in between.
I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. YMMV.
Apparently, "drink when you're thirsty" does not work for me.
I drink some when I first wake up just so I don't forget to drink some, and if I'm exercising I drink a lot
On the subject of peeing, I've come to the conclusion that it's unhealthy to hold it in more than on the rare occasion, and I aim to pee within a few seconds of having the urge.
Actually, I believe it should be a human right to pee within 30 seconds of wanting to, and I'll do it, too.
I didn't claim anything to be bulletproof, just saying that your body tells you when it needs water and drinking in excess of that is probably unnecessary
Yes, and it's important to listen to it, and hear it. Some body signals are subtle, and you won't hear them unless you pay attention.
Headaches, migraines, and other unignorable signals are the body screaming for help after many other more subtle signals have been ignored.
No, I don't go into the office anymore. I live a pauper's existence compared to the past, when I lived like royalty, "earning" enough to pay rent on my own nice apartment in Manhattan, buying new clothes and things regularly, as much as whatever food I wanted, and so on. Though compared to majority of humans and other animals, I'm still doing very well in terms of survival and comfort.
My finances are almost non-existence, and my sense of happiness and self-fulfillment is through the roof.
I'm guessing you were in a situation like many people I know (including myself). Well off, couldn't really reasonably ask for much more, yet still chasing happiness like a carrot on a stick. Tired, unmotivated, and forever looking for the next thing to feel better.
Diet, sleep, and exercise are all "in check". (Not micro managed by any means, but certainly not eating fast food, alcohol, and sleeping poor for example).
Eventually, I found myself working on software maintenance at a bank, a job I become attached to because I thought I wasn't worth much without a degree. I worked there for 5 years.
In corporate, my three role models have been Wally, Costanza, and Gibbons, so I can't say I strained myself too much. I probably spent more time entertaining myself online than proper "working". I was comfortable, and for a while I thought I'd beat the system. I was certainly better off than many who struggle daily.
I worked on CMBS, from the flush days pre-2007, through the crisis, and into times of slow attrition and incremental cost-cutting. Eventually, I was laid off.
I scrambled to find another job, was fired after a month or two for regular and unrepentant tardiness, and then got another one and stayed there for about 3/4 of a year until being laid off. I rode out six months on unemployment, also eating through my savings.
I realized that with five years at the bank on my resume, it will be much easier to find another job, so I did that. I went on a spree of under-a-year stints at different companies, enjoying the first month honeymoon, integration and learning phase, leaving when I became bored.
At this point, I could find a new job before leaving the old one, and my work was good enough that there were no hard feelings. Regardless of how long I worked somewhere, I contributed and was a net positive.
After getting one small raise at the bank over five years, I doubled my salary in three. I was so happy to tell my family that I broke the six figures mark, and they were proud of me.
It sounds good on paper, but here is the problem. Of all the different places I worked "professionally" in 20 years, there is maybe one or two projects that are still in use. Most of what I'd worked on is gone forever, there's probably not a copy left anywhere. Of the systems that are still in use, they're used by a handful of people, and will never see the "light of day" outside of their cellar.
Of all the systems I've worked on, I can only think of one which actually contributed something positive to the world. Most of them were basically negative karma for me.
I played a small part in selling unsound financial instruments, which ruined many people, and left many without a house to live in. I helped integrate advertising into webpages, which helped invade people's privacy and reduce the quality of their Web experience. I worked on countless advertising campaigns, which amounted to helping convince my fellow humans to spend their precious resources on things which would probably harm them, like sugar delivery products and oil drilling.
But the worst of it was that my time was largely out of my control, under the control of someone else. Even if I did absolutely no work at the office and spent all my time browsing [redacted], I was still obligated to get up at a certain time, show up and spend the better portion of a day there, dress a certain way, etc.
Eventually, I realized that this was unsustainable, so I started unsubscribing from those things one by one. One of the first things I unsubscribed from was paying monthly rent. This allowed me to unsubscribe from having to work full-time. I think unsubscribed from many other things, one at a time.
I learned that if you make it a priority, and only change one small thing at a time, there is little to fear and much to gain. Not only that, but my life became infinitely richer and more interesting.
One of the most incredible changes I've experienced is that I no longer get that feeling of, "wow, that was 3 years ago? feels just like yesterday... time flies". In fact, I have the opposite experience often, when I think, "wow, it feels like that was 3 years ago, but it's only been a couple of weeks".
I attribute this to the amount of new and unique experiences I have every day, which used to be close to zero, and is now several per day.
I might come back and write more, but I have to go for now. Thank you for asking your question, and I hope this helps.
One more thing: If you consider the quantum nature of our Universe, and the power of observation and intention, you will begin to see just how powerful your intention is, especially when you intend well, and work to improve your karma every day. There's a lot more to our Universe than today's science admits, it's tuned for love and enjoyment, savoring, and if you focus your attention, incredible, magical things will begin to manifest. I say this as a clear-minded computer programmer and systems maintainer who's spent most of my life figuring out how systems work and experimenting with them.
Edit: sibling comment posted as I was typing. Apparently its couch-surfing and religion.
It's not religion, it is trusting in a higher power, subtly different.
I am low-maintenance, so it is not a burden on them. My rider is clean water, unprocessed food, Web hosting, a 104-key, a computer, and an Internet connection.
I unsubscribed from rent by not renewing my lease and moving out. I rented a storage space for the things I was still attached to at the time, but for much less. After all those boxes went unopened for months and I didn't miss them, I felt comfortable getting rid of them too.
I read that Elon Musk was big on couch-surfing, so I thought, if he could do it, why not me? I was blessed with friends and family who would put me up for various amounts of time, and the grace and patience to get along with them.
Generally speaking, if you want to accomplish something great, you should study those who have already done it. Read their biographies. Read articles and comments about them online. Ignore the noise of common advice you could've gotten from any other schmuck, and look for what they did differently from everyone else.
Elon Musk couch-surfs. Steve Jobs "dropped out" of college on paper and kept attending classes he was interested in. Kurt Cobain wore layers. Jimi Hendrix took speed and spent endless hours practicing guitar. Jesus abandoned physical possessions and embraced all-encompassing love of our Universe. If they could do it, why not you? Probably not any smarter or more capable thank you. All it takes is determination.
Perfect your actions. Every little thing that you do, make it impeccable. If you can't do the small things well, how can you hope to do the big things any better?
Connect with the other dimensions. Ignore the nay-sayers and concretists. 150 years ago, something like telephone would be considered impossible. 50 years ago, videochat was just barely non-fiction. We've been alive for millions of years, adapting to all the possibilities our existence provides.
In my quest, I visited Urbana-Champaign. I went to the old Netscape office and sat in the parking garage and meditated and slept and dreamed. I traveled to Redmond and Mountain View and all over Silicon Valley, and I listened to the space.
I think what's really carried me through all these changes is my relationship with higher power. I believe in intelligent Universe which helps me, provides for me, and never gives me more than I can handle.
I've heard a saying via my family, and later via others: Gd gives you a day, and Gd gives you food to eat. I live by that, I believe that Gd always loves me, is always there for me, is always watching me, rooting for me, supporting me, and will never give me more than I can handle.
I cannot overstate the comfort I feel from knowing this in every situation. It's like being an ant or a beetle, but knowing that there's a giant mountain of a human somewhere up there who's watching out for me, and won't let me come to any harm.
Of course, my ability to take care of an ant is infintesimal compared to the one who is sysadmin, operator, and developer of my very existence. And an ant has a much greater chance of comprehending a human than I have of comprehending this existence. So I just run along and hope that I'll find some sweets in my path, and that I am amusing or interesting or good enough to still be taken care of tomorrow. Kind of like that car battery in Rick & Morty.
You can model this any way you want in your mind, but the key is that this spirit of goodness permeates everything in our existence, and it's always looking for a way to make things a little bit better, a little bit nicer, a little bit kinder. It's infinitely more powerful than all the money in the world put together. It's infinitely smarter than all the world's computers and humans together. It can literally control every aspect of our existence, modify past present and future faster than you can type sudo. And it's here, right now, watching you read this from inside your very mind, opening it up to receive its gift.
In your case I assume you didn't always subscribe to these beliefs and viewpoints, right? I assume based on everything you're written that there was a time, perhaps working at the bank, where you were just like me or anyone else... Working, dissatisfied, looking for more...
What changed?
What sparked the transition?
I admire your conviction but at the same time, it's yours. You'll never be able to just say those things and convey the same power that it has on you. It just doesn't work.
Instead, maybe, you can explain to someone how you got there. How did you come to these convictions? How did you become a person who believes in a higher power who has good intentions and is always watching? For some of us, that sounds more like an acid trip than reality - yet I'm open minded.
In my case I'm comfortable. Very comfortable. Maybe even too comfortable. I want more in life, and I chase happiness like a carrot on a stick. I guess you could say I'm having a mid life crisis my entire life. I can perform exceptionally well when I am inspired, but being inspired is a transient state. I'd love to find peace with my situation, and be inspired to work hard, and work well.
> I realized that with five years at the bank on my resume, it will be much easier to find another job, so I did that.
What are you saying here? You had the five years on your resume all the time you were struggling and on unemployment.
then ~2 more jobs, about a year.
then unemployment with half-hearted minimal job searching and spending the savings.
then back to the workforce for a few more years.
In my misspent youth, I used to drive to a Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts, pound a coffee and close my eyes for 15-20m. Another thing is to reserve a conference room on a remote floor during lunchtime.
I don't really take sleeping that seriously in general, but I used to get sick pretty frequently (sick enough to not work, a couple times a year). Nowadays I have a routine, and it's not so different: if I feel a tiny bit sick, I go home, lie in bed, and order semi-healthy Mediterranean food (I have specific cravings when I get sick -- is this common?). I stay that way until I can't stand being in bed any more. I also avoid any source of stress.
The number of days per year when I'm sick has probably gone down by a factor of 4: I get properly sick half as often, and when I am sick, I get better much faster. Almost as importantly, getting sick is no longer "miserable" in the same way. It seems a substantial part of the misery of being sick (with something mild, like a cold or, at my age, flu) just comes from trying to do things you shouldn't try to do. Lying in bed and executing a nap/snack/pee/read loop... that's not so bad.
(As others in this thread love to point out, this doesn't work for people with bad sick leave, or stressful jobs, or single parents, and so on and so forth. That's a strong case for sick leave etc., as far as I see.)
I'm grateful to the sacrifices of all the chickens I've consumed over the years. May their spirits feel my gratitude and find peace in helping me.
This very much.
And I go crazy lying in bed for long, so for me I rather find a quiet spot in nature in the sun (or shade), even if I am quite sick. A river is perfect. And then just sit or lie for hours.
But I live close to wild nature, so I could not do this if I would have to drive through some rush hour to get there.
Every single time I've said "well, I'll just go into the office and if I don't feel well, I can just head home midday", I've regretted it. It's too late.
I advise anyone reading this and experiencing similar sleep pattern or fatigue to visit their doctor. This could be anything from diabetes, iron difeciency, Vitamin D difeciancy, and whole other things that could be wrong. Please don't use someone's else experience as the whole truth.
I advise the exact opposite, to visit doctors as little as possible, unless you experience pain which does not go away after a day or two.
In my experience, doctors will find something to do with you, and it will rarely work out to your advantage, unless it is emergency medicine.
My personal experiences: One doctor told me I need to get circumcised because I had minor irritation on my glans due to a scratch, which I told them about.
Another doctor insisted, without even looking at my X-rays, IIRC, that the cast on my broken hand was not sufficient, and that I needed him to take the cast off and perform surgery, or I would not be able to use my hand properly again.
If I had listened to these doctors instead of thinking for myself, I'd be without my precious foreskin and undergone unnecessary surgery, which would've delayed my getting better.
Fortunately for me, their diagnoses did not overlap with other dentists.
Several years later of me doing nothing (except regular dental cleaning) - I am still comfortable with my teeth.
One of them even went as far as telling me "Man, there's so many people sick ou there and you're here wasting your time and money while you're damn healthy. Go enjoy life :)"
Maybe doctors think differently in the US or you were just unlucky?
The important bit is, think and advocate for yourself, have healthy fear and respect for medical profession, and treasure the good doctors you come across.
And take good care of yourself so that you don't need them.
Doctors are encouraged to systematize and commoditize their "care", and few are able to stand up to the pressure.
The few who are worth treasuring and showering with support.
If you sleep 24 hours twice a year and all other time you sleep 7-9 - it is a reason to see a doctor?
Sometimes the stress is not obvious.
However, this is how I would also raise a child, letting them sleep as much and whenever they want.
When I was a child myself, my parents were in disagreement. My dad's opinion that I should be "broken in" so that I am better able to integrate into society. My mom thought more along the lines of what I describe.
Seeing that my dad had a societal job while my mom raised me, she largely won out.
I think I have her defense and sheltering of me to thank for being blessed with rarely having problems in this department.
With small kids, the problem is usually not you trying to force a schedule on the kid, but the kid forcing a schedule on you.
We can't always sleep as much as we want to, even without kids. But I've certainly made it a high priority.
Also have your kids younger so you don't need sleep as much. Just accept that the first 5 years wont be as sleepful ;) Also small kids tend to sleep a lot, just not on your schedule :D
I still lack sleep though, but I heard this is normal with small kids...
Good luck to you ..
we are already in the clinic by now.
WFH for your day nap!
However, if the responsibilities are shared between multiple adults, you can still get it done some of the time, and be well-rested and comfortable for when it's your turn to watch the kids and let other adults do their sleeping.
I do have some kind of FOMO, not really about being hyper productive but to be conscious, I could consider a perfectly well spent day even if I just lazed in bed, but i would need to be able to even think about stuff, watch the ceiling or just feel the sheets on my hands.
With how little time I have on this planet and all the possible experiences, I would definitely do without sleeping if I could.
Do you mean in the day you rest, and you sleep at night? Or you mean you might sleep four hours in the day and four at night?
Not sure if the first line means rest in the sense of cat sleep, or actual sleep.
Recently, thanks to my living circumstances, I generally stay up working through the night until sunrise, then sleep until about noon or a couple hours past, get up and start my day, do a couple hours of work, take a break for a walk, do some housework and socializing, and then around midnight, plus or minus midnight, start getting into working.
Throughout the day, I may feel tired, and that's when I take a break and lay down, sometimes cat-napping, sometimes dog-sleeping, and sometimes taking a legit nap.
Other times I may follow a "neo-traditional" schedule of getting up early in the morning and going to bed early-ish at night, maybe with a nap or two thrown in.
I may go to bed at dusk and then get up for a couple hours in the night, as people used to do commonly before artificial lighting.
If I am camping, it depends on the weather. In colder weather, there's a major advantage to sleeping during the day in that the sun keeps you warm. It's easier to stay warm through the night's cold awake and alert than tired and asleep.
If the weather is nice around the clock and there's plenty to do, I may only sleep a couple hours a night, the excitement of new experiences carrying me. Rainy or gray weather typically means sleeping more.
How do you keep your sleep rhythms while you're working?
I've set a goal for myself of one commit daily, and I usually overshoot.
I do not understand how people can live off 7 hours of sleep each night. It seems a big advantage though - they have 5 hours more per day.
Also, I used to be very depressed all the time, and now it rarely happens.
I've experienced many different layers of both cognitive health and cognitive impairment, and I also practice mindfulness, so I am able to assess this pretty well.
I have something to compare to: I used to be able to program all day every day when I was younger. I've also had several instances of TBI. I've had times when I tried to follow a schedule which didn't work for me for both corporate jobs and startups. I've been depressed and at peace, in love and with a broken heart. All of these things can be helpful or debilitating, or even both.
I compare my assessments in comparison with all of these different experiences.
The difference between my current practice and getting 8 hours a day on a schedule is... I don't even know how to describe it.
It sounds like changing your sleep was THE factor?
Or were there other things? I know people who have dramatically changed their diet, and espoused similar life changing revelations... Almost word for word, to what you're describing.
The second most impactful factor for me has been meditation and general spiritual development. I have conditioned myself to practice attention to breath meditation several times per day for anywhere from half a minute to several minutes.
Whenever I notice myself stressed, annoyed, waiting, rushing, indecisive, and in other circumstances where mental clarity would help, I return my attention to breath. I've been practicing this for several years, and have experienced tremendous benefits.
For example, I have been able to largely unwire my annoyance reaction. I just don't become annoyed at things anymore. Crying babies, repetitive sounds, squeaky noises, arrogant or childish people, waiting for someone who's late, running late myself, and so on. It just doesn't bother me, no more than the Earth rotating around its axis.
Of course, if a program steals focus or a site is forcing me to use JS, or my [redacted] news feed is in some random fucking indecipherable sort order, it still annoys me. But that's my passion domain, and I project all those things as potentially happening in my software if I'm not careful, so I let it happen as a way of keeping myself sharp and vigilant.
Diet-wise, I avoid processed food and tobacco, which are my addictions. I've never been much of a drinker, but I've cut alcohol out almost entirely, even the occasional sip of vodka or half a bottle of beer I used to have. I attended several AA meetings recently, and it was a clarifying and eye-opening experience, and I just can't see alcohol the same way anymore.
I still love weed, but no longer regularly. I used to be a wake and bake, all day every day, no such thing as too much weed smoker.
Based on my prior psychedelic experience, I think I could have achieved many of these changes much quicker with the occasional acid trip, but I haven't found the right set and setting in a while.
Conceptually you are on to something. Pushing exhaustion isn’t smart.
All those meetings and deadlines and business software would mean nothing.
I would like to hear these other practices as well. I think your sleep practices are sound and derived from a solid theoretical basis.
I didn't like it at first but got used to it eventually
I surely sometimes have to get up when I don't want to, it just happens less often than it used to, every couple days or weeks rather than every morning.
When I wake up, I usually don't eat for several hours, nor do I have any desire to, as my digestive system is still "booting up". I have heard countless times from various wise beings that drinking a glass of clean water after waking up is very beneficial, so I do that. Sometimes it is yesterday's tea, though.
My ideal eating technique is once a day, and then maybe a few light snacks here and there. It's to avoid processed food, meaning anything which I didn't see its original form of and wasn't prepared by someone I know, whether it is grinding up or mixing, and to avoid things with multiple ingredients.
However, because I co-exist with others who are not as far along as me, I stray from this quite a bit. I partially alleviate it with occasional water fasting to give myself a chance to clear out the junk.
(When I say "natural", it's shorthand for "how our life was for millions of years and what evolution tuned our bodies for".)
Whenever I feel tired, I lay down to rest.
Whenever I am sleeping, I allow myself to sleep until I am "fully slept", meaning I can lay there for a while, still physically resting, and not fall asleep.
Sometimes this means only a couple hours, and sometimes it's 16 or more. Whatever it is, if I am tired and want to keep sleeping, that's what I do.
A couple of times I think I was coming down with something, I slept for more than 24 hours with only pee breaks. And I woke up feeling fresh as a cucumber, as they say.
Those flus and colds which I used to get once or twice a year and which would sometimes drag on for weeks? I can't remember the last time I've had that happen, but it's been several years now. (Of course, I have several other practices to thank for this, in addition to the sleep.)
I also practice what I call "dog sleep" or "cat sleep", meaning I lay down and close my eyes and fully rest my body, without necessarily losing all alertness or consciousness.
My rewards have been improved cognition, better health and overall feeling, and still being able to do occasional coding marathons like I used to when I was half my current age.
We've been conditioned to think of sleep as laziness and sloth, but nothing could be further from the truth on the cellular level. When you rest, your cells go to work cleaning, rebuilding, and renewing your body. Your mind also does sorting and self-analysis, and returns the results in the form of remembered dreams.