Hey, this is my first post. My nick in slack was rasengan(pretty much a lurker, though I participated in the last video chat with @geoffrey ).
This post has been a long time coming, so thanks for the nudge.
I want to preface everything with my understanding / theory of where wellbeing / stress-management fits within the framework of actualism. I’m curious about you guys’ opinions about it, especially @Srinath (as he’s a mental health professional and has more knowledge). So here it goes.
It’s my view that the feeling-bad / feeling-good continuum is completely orthogonal to the feeling-bad-feelings / feeling-good-feelings continuum. My intuition is that feeling-good is basically about the autonomous nervous system’s(ANS from now on) evaluation of how bad/good the current situation is.
Thus, imo you need a healthy(well calibrated) ANS in order to consistently choose to enjoy and appreciate. Even if you don’t agree, with this view I’m confident that most of the practices I’ll outline below are complementary to actualism practice and can only help.
What follows are various physiologically based practices that have been working for me. Think of them as a quick guide to wellbeing. Some of these apply to everyone, and others are a kind of Pre-Actualism - stuff I do to get my baseline to a level when feeling-neutral / feeling-good seems like a real posibility. I mean this both short long term and long term - that is both within a single day(when I’m good I can apply the actual actualism method) and on longer timespans - in order to be able to more consistently apply the method. Now I’m perfectly aware that’s not the way it is to be done, but I also know where I’m coming from and where I stand right now.
Standalone practices - that is stuff you gotta make time for and gradually improves your baseline / processes nervous energy:
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Zone 2 aerobic workouts - basically you do whatever aerobic activity you like and keep your heart rate around 60% - 70% of you heart rate maximum. There is a more formal definition involving blood lactate concentrations, but this is irrelevant here(for more details check this)
This gets me feeeling pretty well, both whilst doing it and after. It also improves my breathing practice(more on that later) Plus there’s added self-regulation if you try to keep you pulse down consciously(that is without changing tempo). My intuition about how it works is that it improves heart rate variability, thus regulating the ANS. -
Hrv breathing - belly breathe, inhaling for 4s, exhaling for 6s. Do it for 10-20min 1-2 times a day. There are more details, like the “perfect” breathing frequency which is individual. I “heard” about it from Tim Ferris, who recommended this book. The book is a bit bullshitty american stuff, but the breathing works.
It was a bit hard for me to get it going for me and it’s still improving but it definitely helps, to the point that the stress reduction lead to my lifelong digestive issues improving and I can now eat stuff that I couldn’t before. There is much much more depth to breath practices and I recommend Iyengar’s Light on pranayama for a very robust - even if slightly tinted by spiritual dogma, the practices themselves are purely physiological. -
Stress innoculation - use some physiological factor to create a controlled level of acute short term stress. This works by calibrating your nervous system to what is actually a high level of stress, thus shows it that it doesn’t need to overreact for everyday stuff, cos here is what “real stress” looks like. Also probably makes your parasympathetic NS compensate.
Here are some examples. What is paramount here is that you don’t overdo it and keep calm during the whole thing - the physiological stuff will generate enough stress. Err on the side of mildness. If you do too much you’d just stress yourself and achieve a negative effect.- Interval training - for example sprint for 30s, walk for 30s, repeat 5-10 times. I feel great afterwords(when I don’t overdo it)
- Cold exposure - have a brief cold shower. You can gradually scale both the time and the coldness.This is just great after you do it a few times - highly recommend.
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Wim hof breathing - instructions. This is also pretty nice (when you don’t overdo the breathholds
). This guy is a bit of a whacko, but the stuff works(I personally do it only ocasionally to be honest), and it also has some scientific studies on it if that’s your thing
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Napping - no need to explain, a quick 10-15min mid day does wonders for me when I have the time. For me the biggest benefit comes from just from “touching” the hypnagogic state and stopping there. This can be done in like 5min.
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Flexibility work
- musculoskeletal tension - stretching can help a lot, when you relax your muscles you also relax your nervous system. There’s also plenty of anecdotal evidence of psychological trauma getting released with deep flexibility work.
- fascial adhesions - these are places where the fascia(a.k.a. connective tissue) doesnt slide or stretch in the way it’s supposed to. They also generate a ton of nervous tension for me. Getting rid of them(still in the Loong process) has improved my well being a lot. This can be done by a professional(MFR for example), or at home with massage balls, foam-rollers etc.
All day long practices - quick / easy stuff you can do periodically to nudge yourself into feeling better. This works similarly to the actualism method - when you notice yourself dipping too much into feeling bad or dissociating too much - try and self regulate. Now here the intention is the most important thing and you don’t need to do something concrete, sometimes just noticing with intention is enough. That being said here are some physiological tricks that can give you a gentle kick in the right direction when you need it:
- Rosenberg’s basic exercise - instructions. Basically interlock your fingers on the back of your head and look to the side. It exploits the physiology of the cranial nerves to elicit a parasympathetic activation. This works for me but not for some people - probably intention makes the difference.
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Instruction video for next 4 - all these work quite well for me
- Peripheral vision / gaze softening
- Valsalva maneuver
- Yawning
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Some more
- tapping - works for me, but not consistently(may be just placebo, but does it matter). You can also just put gentle pressure on these points.
- laughter - watch some cat videos :)(also important to not overdo)
- inversions - like a headstand.
- cold water facewash - triggers the dive reflex, really refreshing for me. Works better if you get the ears and neck also
There are probably lots more, but intention and habit are key.
Auxiliary stuff:
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Sleep - sleeping well and enough makes a big difference in my wellbeing
- A simple trick - that calibrates your circadean rythms and improves your mood in the morning is to see direct sunlight(that means not while driving or through window) for around 10min each morning not more than 1-2 hours after waking up. More on that here
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Diet - I don’t wanna open the gates of hell, so just sharing some simple diet-religion agnostic stuff that helps with being more stable
- Avoid large doses of fast carbs (that is high glycemic index) - these will spike and than crash your blood sugar and make it harder to start burning fat again. All of this makes for a pretty unnecessarily worsened mood
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Intermittent fasting - Give your body a break and don’t stuff your face all the time your awake . I definitely feel better since I started doing it, my mood is much more stable, and I experience much less hunger than before. Choose a window of hours and eat only than - for example 10am to 6pm. No need to go overboard but it’s be nice to not eat for at least 12 hours. (some aficionados will say I should say time restricted feeding…)
These may not be exactly what you had in mind, but I do think they help a great deal and are not in conflict with the paradigm of actualism.