Takeaways

• Pilot test Misogi in things I am doing
• Start logging the carolies of food I eat
• Start writing my bucket list
• Get comfortable with doing nothing
• Limit my screentime

Notes

Misogi - do the hard thing

In our model of misogi, there are only two rules. Rule number one is that it has to be really hard. Rule number two is that you can’t die. How to determine if something is hard enough? We generally guided by the idea that you should have fifty percent chance of success – if you do everything right. If you never run more than 10 miles, think you could probably run 15, but are iffy on whether you could run 20, then 25 miles is probably a misogi.

This morning could have been bad. But moments like that… you might find that they make everything else more colorful and more manageable.

The harder you work for something, the happier you’ll be about it.

Boredom

Tolstroy had this great quote in Anna Karenina that says boredom is a desire for desires, so boredom is a motivational state.

Unfocused mode occurs when we’re not paying attention. It’s inward mind-wandering, a rest state that restores and rebuilds the reources needed to work better and more efficiently in the focused state. Time in unfocused mode is critical to get shit done, tap into creativity, process complicated information, and more.

Five stages of receptionless greif. Denial, anger, bargining, depression, and acceptance.

Time in nature is a hell of a way to calm the turbulent sea inside our minds.

Hunger

Get comfortable with discomfortable.

Processed food is not always junk, but junk is usually processed.

People should be doing less and elimininating limiters to progress.

I quickly ‘solved’ hundreds of problems just by virtue of improving a person’s aweareness of their own behavior.

People are aweful at estimating portion sizes.

Deal with stress by going for a walk instead of eating. It relieves more stress and is health promoting.

The least filling food was croissants, while the most filling was plain white potatoes. A small croissant and a medium potato both have about 170 calories. You’d have to eat about 7 croissants, 1190 carolies, to experience the same fullness you’d get from a single potato. The key quality that make a food filling: how heavy its 240 calorie serving size was.

At the extreme opposite end of the spectrum there are oils, like olive oil or canola oil. A pound of oil has 4000 calories, when you are making a direct comparison of these foods, there ’s about a 6500% difference in how many calories a pound of these foods have.

Junk food such as chips, candy bars, desserts, and even energy bars, for example, have about 2000 calories per pound. Processed grains like breads and crackers have about 1500, while unprocessed grains like cooked rice and oats have 500. Tubers, fruits, and vegetables have about 400, 300, and 120, respectively.

A person should mostly be eating unprocessed whole grains and tubers, fruits and vegetables, and lowish-fat animal protein.

An average plate could be a quarter animal protein, a quarter whole grains or tubers, and half vegetables or fruit.

Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.

Death

The country of Bhutan has made it part of their national curriculum to think about death anywhere from 1 to 3 times daily.

Death is part of everyday life.

Don’t you want to know that there is a cliff? Because only then can we change our course. We could take a more scenic route, notice the beauty of the trail before it ends, says the things we truly want to say to the people we are talking it with.

All things change. All individual things pass away.

Gratitude has been shown to reduce anxiety and even ailments like heart disease.

thik of mitakpa (death) three times each day.

Remember, death can come at any time. Any time.

Health

In misogi you will reach this edge where you are convinced you have nothing left, but you will keep going anyway. And then you will look back and you will be way out beyond what you were certain was your edge. You won’t forget that.

The truth is, every human body can achieve amazing physical feats when it is forced to.

A figure that shows just how predisposed humans are to default to comfort: 2. That is the percent of people who take the stairs when they also have the option to take an escalator.

Our lack of either exercise in general or cognitive demands during exercise may lead to capacity reductions or suboptimal capacity maintenance in the brain similar to those seen in otehr organ systems. Our brains adaptively reduce capacity as part of an energy-saving strategy, leding to age-related brain atrophy.

The increased challenge of walking or running on untamed, uneven ground forces people to burn an average of 28 percent more energy per step compared to paved ground.

Doing physical hard things is an enormous life hack. Do hard things and the rest of life gets easier and you apprecaite it all the more.

Swedish research found that the strongest among a massive group of men of all ages were the least likely to die over two decades.

People just need to be more active generally.

Without conscious discomfort and porposeful exercise - a forceful push against comfort creep - we will only continue to become weaker and sicker.

A daily shower with antibacterial soap “upsets the balance of microorganisms on the ski and encourages the emergence of hardier, less friendly organisms that are more resistant to antibiotics. Frequent baths or showers throughout a lifetime may reduce the ability of the immune system to do its job.