#I found these are the perfect mindless exercise for while I try to learn A Language

[livebloggingmydescentintomadness]

tw suicidal thoughts

hi momdad. I'm not doing very well right now and although I know I'll be okay, do you have any tips for how to make it easier while I wait it out? anything to just block out the constant suicidal thoughts and stop me mentally planning things that make me sad to think about. I understand if you don't have the time/spoons for this and I'll be okay either way, but your words often make me feel a lot better about things. thanks <3

hey there, darling, i'm really sorry you're going through this. Bad Thoughts are also one of my biggest enemies, and i've been dealing with them for... going on twenty years, now. so, let's break this down.

in my expert opinion, you need to attack Bad Thoughts from three different sides: physical, mental, and social. congrats, you've already taken a step on the social side!

physically: i know, fucking believe me i know, that right now is the last time you feel like doing anything, but it genuinely is harder to feel like dying when you're clean, fed, and rested. this isn't about being perfect, having a bubble bath and making your bed or whatever, it's just about feeling less gross, through whatever means you're capable of.

change your clothes if you've been wearing them more than a day, take a sponge bath to get rid of the worst of the grime and stink, throw down a fresh flat sheet on your bed or change your pillowcase if it's been a long time since you changed them. whatever little thing you can do.

eat something. if all you've got is candy bars, then eat candy bars, but it is important to keep in mind that you will, unfortunately, feel better when you've had some nutrition. if you can get some apple slices, baby carrots, snap peas, etc, super easy finger foods, that's great. you also need protein and will feel weak and shitty without it, so get some beef jerky, hard boiled eggs, whatever you can. doesn't matter if you're just eating peanut butter out of the jar, just eat.

i know, intimately, the pain of insomnia, so if you can't sleep i totally get it, but do try and sleep instead of just staying awake because you can't face your own mind. honestly, i have a small tv in my room and i tend to keep it on at a very low volume when i sleep, because the noise helps to keep my mood from tanking when i close my eyes. if you need something like that, that's totally okay. just try and sleep, or at least rest. if nothing else, close your eyes for a while and listen to a podcast.

lastly - and know that i'm saying this through gritted teeth, seething - i'm afraid that exercise helps. i hate it, i hate every minute of it, but it actually fucking helps. i prefer to lift weights and/or do yoga, as i can go at my own pace in my own room, and stop whenever i can't take it anymore. i sleep so much better when i exercise 2-3 times a week, because life is just horrible like that.

mentally: when it comes to fight off the Bad Thoughts, distraction is The Most Important Thing. when you can't do anything else, distraction is your last line of defense. and i have unmedicated adhd so i know it's fucking hard, but it helps if you cultivate multiple tactics that work as distractions.

the best distractions i've found:

something that makes you laugh (you have to laugh, fuck, you absolutely have to find a way to laugh)

something you find interesting (science, history, puzzles, even just how it's made videos; scroll through youtube until you find a topic that you're legitimately curious about and learn something new)

something that feels comforting (your favorite movie or show, your favorite book, your favorite fic; doesn't matter if you've watched/read it a hundred times, do it again)

something totally mindless that requires your entire focus (for me that's usually a game on my phone, something like scrabble, word search, or a pop-all-the-bubbles sort of game; make sure you don't fall down a sinkhole of buying more turns and shit)

i have a distractions tag if you'd like some ideas on where to start. if you'd like a few recs of channels i like to watch when i feel shitty:

andrew rousso's skits are hilarious

liziqi lives in the chinese countryside and makes beautiful, peaceful videos of gardening, farming, and cooking. wild girl and dianxi xiaoge have similar channels.

absolute history has some fascinating in-depth videos

acrylic pours are pretty damn cool to watch

chris fleming is as unhinged as he is funny

tasting history with max miller recreates ancient recipes and discusses the history surrounding them

serena art has a cool method of painting that is very interesting to watch

caitlin reilly is painfully good at being funny

the animal cracker is a chiropractor who works on animals, including horses, which is actually really cool

for some reason i think harvesting videos are fascinating??

okay, that probably has you set for a while, lol. but i think that gives you an idea of what i find helpful, from educational to funny to just cool to look at when you can't concentrate on anything.

important part of this is staying committed to the distraction. you are a hockey goalie and you are not letting that shit through. cycle through ten different distractions if you need, just do not fall into the pit of bad thoughts. power through the worst of it.

socially: believe me, i don't love talking to people when i'm buried under a wave of despair, and i'm pretty bad at keeping in touch with friends, but make an attempt at talking to someone and either being honest about how you feel or just have a chat about nothing important, because we're social creatures and we feel better when we've been in contact with other people. even if you're just sending memes or rambling about fanfic, it helps a little bit.

okay, dear, that's my guide to holding back the tide on the Bad Thoughts. of course i could say all sorts of encouraging, inspirational stuff, but honestly when i'm in the depression hole, i don't really want to hear that stuff. simple, concrete actions help me more than promises that everything's going to be okay or i'm strong enough to handle this, blah blah. but if you do want more along that line, try my suicide tag for support and more advice.

this fucking sucks and it's okay that it fucking sucks, you don't need to paint a smiley face on a pile of shit and try to act grateful about it. just try and take care of yourself as best you're able, and don't let those thoughts gain a foothold, alright? you'll get through this, sweetheart.

#suicide #distractions #depression #suicide tw #anonymous #ask #long post for ts

[deboracabral]

I was art blocked so I drew some blocks 

#artists on tumblr #art blocks #I found these are the perfect mindless exercise for while I try to learn A Language #so there’s that

[bisexualsmackingnoises]

Date anon again! Have you posted your ocs?? I don't think I've seen them srry if someone already asked about them!

Hey date anon! Thank you so much for your ask about my OCs, it means a lot to me that people are interested in them! I had this laying around in my inbox for an era and a half, but I thought now would be the perfect time to release them!

If anyone wants to learn more about these babes, just ask! I put a lot of time and love into them.

HAPPY 150+ FOLLOWERS, EVERYONE!

My (Main) JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo OCs!

Daphne Libertina (she/her)

Say HIII GIRLIEEE to my first and most developed Vento Aureo OC, Daphne! She’s your classic Y2K aesthetic airhead archetype. While designing her, I found Bimbo TikTok and fell in love with the aesthetic and the ideology. Because of this, a lot of the ditzy behaviour I worked into Daphne’s personality and design is inspired by Chrissy Chlapecka’s New Age Bimbo. She’s kind of a hyperfeminine vessel for whatever “girly” sentiments I have as well. I’m not that outwardly feminine in my daily life (I have a gender crisis every second week, subscribe for more!), so Daph was an experiment in expressing it elsewhere. This resulted in a newfound obsession with the colour pink and a renewed love for characters like Elle Woods and Cher Horowitz.

You might know her from my absolute banger of an art debut, the “Nectar” post*. Her besties include @blackevermore’s Chiara, @amarettocoffee’s Gina, and @bucciaratis-titty-window’s Strelitzia. Love ya galz, xoxo!

Stand: Scarlet Letter (Namesake: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne [Book]). Alternatively**, Teen Idle (Namesake: Teen Idle by MARINA [Song])

*DISCLAIMER: She does not actually do… that. Even if @bucciaratis-titty-window says otherwise. Don’t listen to her. (That being said, take a wild guess who I ship her with.)

**“Why does she have two stand names?” Her stand was developed as SL but TI adheres to the music reference stand criteria. That being said, it’s a creative choice that I use SL regardless. Both pieces of media play a huge part in her foundation.

Capriccio “Crema” Solitario (they/them)

Described often by my friends as a feral noodle, Capriccio—codename Crema*—is my compulsory “Hey, I kinda wanna bang literally all of La Squadra???” self insert that gives me intense gender envy. Capri started out as a joke character, as their old name was “La Squadra Thot” or “LST” for short (take from that what you will). This was eventually shortened to “La Thotra” … until I gave them a tragic backstory and a real personality. That being said, their base function was still present in their later design: they were La Squadra Esecuzioni’s stress toy for a little while, but eventually settled down with two of my favourite assassin degenerates and holds their own as a valuable member of the team.

Stand: Mindless Self Indulgence/MSI (Namesake: Mindless Self Indulgence [Band])

*I have a headcanon that La Squadra’s “names” are all codenames, and that they have perfectly reasonable—if not slightly referential—normal names.

Lucetta “Lulu” Vitali (she/her/they/them)

Lucetta is probably the closest OC I have to a genuine self insert—she’s the most like me out of all of my JoJo OCs, anyway. Funnily enough, she doesn’t have that much development outside of her relationship dynamic with her long-term boyfriend*. I’m still trying to figure out how to translate all of me—or at least the key parts of me—into her and how she lives. Stay tuned for that. For now, I’ll bet that she’s working an entry level position in the writing industry, a projection of my future (hopefully).

Dierdre Darling (she/her)

Stand: N/A—just a regular ol’ person.

*For the record, I'm actually currently single & happy that way. Lulu, however, is dating her high school sweetheart. Guess who!

Mild gore warning on this one, she's... special.

Dierdre came to me in a moment of exercise delirium while listening to Blood Eater by Mom, and was inspired by the way zombies work in the TV show iZombie. Well, that’s how her stand works, anyway. She began Araki-style, power first and character second. She’s a shrill, unhinged woman with an insatiable craving for human flesh, blood and bone. She’s kinda like Secco, but worse. And yes, those teeth are purposefully, cosmetically sharpened. Also, a Unita Speciale member. Ask @bucciaratis-titty-window who babysits her.

She’s not exactly “with” anyone right now, but the joke at the beginning of her development was that she’d fallen hopelessly in love with a man who could create the rot and decay of time before her very eyes… oh, did I mention she’s fascinated by decay?

Stand: Living Dead Girl (Namesake: Living Dead Girl by Rob Zombie [Song])

#jojo's bizarre adventure golden wind #jojo's bizarre adventure vento aureo #jojo's bizarre adventure part 5 #jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba va #jjba shipping #jjba #jjba gw #jjba oc #oc #oc x canon #oc/canon #self insert #jojo anime #jojo manga #JJBA OC Crema #JJBA OC Dierdre #JJBA OC Lucetta #JJBA OC Daphne #ask #anon #date anon #tysm #150 Follower Event #follower milestone #150 follower oc announcement celebration #mild gore warning #Lizposting

[getlitaesthetic]

I’m interested to see what the brothers would be like if they had a child (probably with the mc purposely or accidentally) and the fucked up family dynamics that would come of it, like would they full on discard the child? Raise them to be just like their dad? I wouldn’t be surprised if Beel pulled a full on Kronos from Greek mythology

Also asked by an anon: “What if mc somehow got pregnant? How would the brothers be towards them during their pregnancy and how will they deal with the child?”

(Undateables version found Here)

Lucifer

It is on purpose, and Lucifer is the most excited to be having a child.

Will carefully monitor MC’s diet, exercise, leisure activities, everything they do to an extent far surpassing anything he’s done before.

He becomes obsessed with the child’s health.

Not that that stops him from injuring MC, but now he’s very careful with what he does to avoid any harm coming to his child. After all, they can’t get comfortable here.

When the child is finally born, it’s immediately taken from MC.

“I can’t have you passing on your weakness to my daughter, can I?”

He names her Lilith. It was always going to be Lilith.

Lucifer is a loving father, and abusive partner. MC only gets to see Lilith as a prize for a job well done. They become the most well-behaved human in the realm for a chance to see their child. It is such a rare occurrence, their daughter rarely remembers them.

He teaches Lilith to be a true demon, despite their half human nature. Raises them into the Devildom and is a careful protector to ensure that no corrupting influences touch her but his own.

Eventually, Lilith is ready.

MC is so excited to see their daughter, as soon as she enters the room, she’s swept into a big hug. 

MC gasps, and gurgles as they choke on their own blood, Lilith giggling in their arms. 

“Did I do a good job, Daddy?”

“You did perfectly, Princess.”

Mammon

This was definitely an accident

Not only was it an accident, but he may or may not have freaked out a little bit.

“Do you KNOW how expensive children are?”

But then he realizes that everything has a value.

So he sucks it up, and helps MC get through the pregnancy unscathed... Although he may or may not have chained them to the wall so they didn’t get into trouble while he was handling business.

When the boy is born, Mammon doesn’t bother to name him. He leaves MC to take care of the child. They name him Najjad, and dedicate all of their time to raising him to be happy, and healthy, and as human as possible.

He is a handsome child, born with a head of pale white hair, and MC’s eyes. Skin smooth and unblemished, with an easy, happy smile. They love him. They would do anything for Mammon in order to continue being allowed to raise their son.

But the fantasy is short lived.

Mammon quickly grows tired of MC’s time being split between him and the boy, growing greedy once again for their full attention. 

It isn’t long before he has lined up a buyer. It is only days after that that, without warning, Najjad is taken from his parent’s arms, and delivered to a shady demon willing to pay a pretty penny for the offspring of one of the Avatars.

“Finally! About time I got you to myself again, eh?”

Leviathan

This was long since planned. It was only a matter of time before one of his brothers had a child, and Levi wanted one first. Maybe it was the envy in him. Okay, okay. Probably it was the envy in him.

MC is already locked in his room, so it’s easy to hide the pregnancy, just in case something happens. After all, the last thing he wants is for his brothers to know it was a race, and then for him to lose.

Or worse, for one of his brothers to hurt MC while they were still pregnant.

Levi forces MC to do a lot of floating during the pregnancy, and to have a water birth.

However, he is less careful than most of the others. Constantly forgetting to be gentle, always pushing and grabbing MC a little too hard.

Still, the baby boy is born healthy. He doesn’t look quite human, even at birth. Long ragged gills cut sharp lines along his throat, and his eyes are slit. A long black tail extends from his spine, with a fin on the end. The rest of him looks human enough.

Leviathan eventually settles on the name Mizuko. MC is not given the chance to disagree.

MC is still not allowed to leave the room, but is given ample time with their son, helping to raise him, as long as they follow Levi’s strict instructions. He often takes Mizuko away for significant periods of time, disappearing along with him. MC can only imagine they are in the Devildom’s waterways, their son learning skills they’d rather him not know.

Oh, but how good to be alive, and a parent. Even if they were chained to this room, to the torture of being Levi’s plaything. Mizuko makes the whole thing so much more bearable. In fact, they consider trying to get Levi to have another, if only so that they may have a chance to always have one at home.

“I did it, MC! I won! I wonder what Lucifer will have to say about that.”

Satan

A pregnancy with Satan was planned, and actually suggested by MC.

They wanted to show their devotion to him, still so unaware of how he had manipulated every aspect of their life.

He seems so excited when MC tells them that it’s happened, they’re pregnant.

He treats them so sweetly throughout their pregnancy, but continues drugging, manipulating, and casting spells on them without their knowledge and without regard to their child.

It is only luck that none of them hurt their baby.

MC gives birth to a beautiful daughter, who will grow to have soft blonde ringlets and beautiful blue eyes, just like her father. She glows softly. 

Satan and MC agreed to the name Ismene for a girl early in the pregnancy, and once she arrived, it seemed just perfect. 

She grows to be smart as a whip, but cruel. Satan is so proud. MC begins to realize they don’t know everything about their husband after all.

They sit in the garden, Ismene practicing a spell to set a flower ablaze. MC tries to frown, to scold her, but their face does not budge.

“How lovely,” they hear themselves say, as if far away. “Our little girl is growing so quickly.”

Satan kissed their forehead and knelt in front of their daughter.

“Remember, you have to want it to die, with all of the rage in your heart,” he instructs her.

She smiles, looking at MC as the flower begins to burn.

Asmodeus

A child with Asmodeus is unplanned, but not unexpected.

With all of the unprotected sex he has with MC, and how frequently? It was only a shock it took so long.

Besides, MC no longer had the brain capacity to agree or plan anything. All they wanted was more of their demon master, filling them up, using them, making them worth something.

What could possibly fill them more than a child?

Asmo thinks it’s adorable, to watch MC’s stomach grow as they lay there, mindless and drooling. Desperate for anything Lust could offer.

It does not affect his daily routine in the slightest. He continues to use and abuse MC as he sees fit whenever he desires, and still disappears for weeks at a time, leaving MC’s health up to whatever brother happens to remember to feed them.

They give birth alone, confused as to why they are in pain and what is happening.

When Asmo returns, he leaves MC in their pain and filth, taking the baby girl away to clean her up and dress in lovely silks.

He names her Bellerose Fayre, and is the only one of the brothers to give his child a middle name.

She is perfect, and would pass for human if it wasn’t for her long, winding tail that reaches and grasps with it’s velvety texture, pulling in anything it can touch.

What happens next is... incredibly disturbing, to say the least. If you are particularly sensitive, I would recommend skipping to Beelzebub.

Asmo is inseparable from his daughter. Always keeping her dressed in beautiful clothing and teaching her everything he knows. Bellerose is a very quick study. It isn’t long at all before she has fully tapped into her father’s power and begins to work at his side, seducing souls to Hell. Only a child. 

How MC would have died to stop it if they could have. But they remained in that room, no mind left to care.

“Good job, Rosie! Another worthless wretch condemned to the pits. You’re a natural!”

Beelzebub

Unplanned. Unplanned. So unplanned.

Anon, you are unfortunately quite correct.

Beelzebub can smell it on MC before they even know. He had been holding back on feasting, saving them for a special occasion. 

But now that they were pregnant? Their blood, their body, all of it was extra nutritious as it prepared to build his child.

He waits, for a while. Staying far away so as not to be tempted, despite MC’s desperate attempts to get him involved.

The day comes for the gender reveal.

A boy.

Since Beel refuses to be involved, MC picks out the name. Akuji. 

It’s an apt name. 

MC returns that day to attempt to tell Beel the news, only to be met by the lumbering form of the starved man that strikes fear into their heart. They eat MC whole, and their child with them.

But that isn’t the end. Awake. Akuji screams from inside MC, inside Beel. Tiny claws begin to scratch and dig.

Eventually, his son rips through his stomach and into the world, severely underdeveloped. Time would take care of that. The boy had curled hands with bloody claws, blindingly violet eyes, and the concave stomach of his father. He would eventually grow fly wings and a head of MC’s hair, but he would never gain a full human form.

Beel tried several times over the years to eat his son, to no avail. Every time, he would just have to sew up his stomach and continue on his endless stalk for sustenence.

Belphegor

A child with Belphie is so unplanned that he doesn’t even know about it until a thousand years after they are born.

He had trapped MC in his lair for his nap, but his grip had loosened in his dreaming, and while they remained locked in the room, at least they could roam. Food was stockpiled to hide from his twin brother, which MC subsisted on.

They had become pregnant after a slow, elongated night of fucking with Belphie as he gained their favor to get them where they were now. And they had no way to tell him without ensuring their own death in the process.

So MC coached themselves through the pregnancy, always careful not to wake Belphegor.

It was a close call during the birth, as he huffed and stirred, but MC bit down on their own arm to shut themselves up.

When their son was born, he looked perfectly human. Blinking slowly up at their parent. MC fed him only once, and whispered his name to him before he drifted to sleep. 

Eventually, the food ran out. Their son did not wake, no matter how they tried. MC sobbed quietly at their loss, as surely he was dead. Starved and exhausted, they laid down to die.

Hundreds of years passed. In his sleep, the child grew, gaining more demonic features. Growing longer, sharper. Lithe wings extending from his back and sharp teeth appearing past his lips.

Their dreams began to intertwine, the boy learning so much from the Avatar of Sloth’s thoughts.

Finally, Belphie awoke, immediately spotting his son in the corner, strangely familiar, and the young one stirred at the movement.

“Who are you?”

“Cimon.”

“Hmm. Good morning.”

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me headcanons #obey me yandere #House of Lamentation #obey me dark au #children of the dark

[her-culture]

Preventing Procrastination: Study Tips for Online Learning

During these unprecedented times, multiple institutions have converted to a virtual learning format for the safety of their student body and staff. Consequently, the lives of students around the globe were drastically altered, with many scrambling to adapt to this new way of life. As someone who is part of this group, I have spent the past couple of weeks trying out various methods to figure out how to optimize my studying in a rather distracting home environment. 

From this experience, I have gathered essential tips that will certainly enable you to establish a sense of routine in your life and win the battle against procrastination.

1. Create a planning system personalized for your needs.

Although this piece of advice may be considered slightly generic, I believe that it is crucial for every student to follow this recommendation. For those who possess a love for art, aesthetic planners and calendars will definitely allow you to feel at home. When writing down your assignments, develop a color scheme using items such as highlighters as it may help make it easier for you to differentiate between classes.

However, there are many who do not particularly enjoy creating works of visual art. For those who prefer simplicity and convenience, utilizing a simple to-do list on online platforms ranging from Google Keep to Momentum (a widely used Chrome extension) may be the way to go. Regardless of your system of choice, prioritization is key for success. Personally, I would suggest you write your top five most important agenda items, and complete them before turning to anything else. As most often people are unwilling to tackle their entire workload head-on and thus procrastinate, by focusing on only a few tasks at a time, their workload will seem less daunting, resulting in more willingness to engage with each task.

2. Eliminate all distractions.

I have found that order in your physical work space works wonders for your productivity, and will, by extension, improve your organization skills. Unless you are claustrophobic, I believe that the smaller the room, the better due to the fact that less space ensures less room for possible distraction. Additionally, remove any excessive items you do not need out of your line of sight, and stack all necessary files in organized rows.

 For the desk itself, try to sort out as many items as you can, leaving overflow study materials on nearby spaces—the clearer the desk, the clearer your mind will become. Furthermore, when studying, completely shut down your phone or pass it on to a family member so that the temptation of constantly checking your notifications does not become a problem. If you are still preoccupied because of disruptive background noise, wear noise-cancelling headphones or turn on peaceful music using Spotify (I would recommend listening to jazz music playlists).

3. Connect with your teachers often.

Since the method of contact has been reduced to through a screen, it is quite likely that many students will gradually withdraw from social interaction; this may pose a problem later on when one is confused about the coursework. As a result, I truly think that the conversations you have with your teachers may end up becoming your most valuable resource this term. 

By emailing them and attending Zoom conference sessions, you will have the opportunity to ask any follow-up questions that may arise instead of having to figure out difficult topics on your own, saving you both time and stress. 

Before sending out your requests, however, it is important that you master the art of emailing properly. From having perfect grammar throughout to an accurately generated signature at the bottom, you should hold your emails to a high standard of professionalism as they represent your public persona in an online environment. With more casual conversations, it may be appropriate to add emojis or images to add some personality and color to your messages. Remember that email etiquette is important, such as asking people how they are doing before posing a question or making a request and ensuring you get the time zones right when scheduling a meeting. 

4. Maintain a level of balance in life. 

Lastly, because having a balanced lifestyle will greatly improve your mental health and performance in school, it is critical that you create space in your schedule for non-academic activities. Widely recognized as beneficial, exercise should be integrated into your daily routine, whether that means you running a couple of miles or simply doing yoga stretches in your room. To do so, you should block out an hour or two in your schedule each day, and plan your workouts using online fitness plans as a model.

In addition to exercise, although often overlooked, receiving adequate sleep is absolutely necessary. For high school and college students, you should be sleeping at least six hours a night as a bare minimum. 

To resist the temptation to constantly snack on sugary foods, study far away from the fridge as it can help prevent over-consumption and mindless eating. When eating your meals, do not attempt to complete homework while doing so because focusing on your food will make you feel fuller and assist your stomach in digestion. From colorful salads to hearty steaks, there are a variety of healthy food options you should steer toward whenever possible to keep your body energized and filled with good nutrition; there are numerous online sites and channels that can easily help you find what is right for you.

[thisrosewillnotwilt]

Grinch and Chill

WHO: Marley & Aston WHAT: Roommates meet for the first time WHEN: Wednesday, December 3, evening @astonxjones

So she had a new roommate after all. Aston thought it was odd that there was about a day delay when everyone else seemed to do it automatically but, it wasn't really her business either. Coming back from practice she got to the dorms just in time to meet the delivery guy and carried the pizza in herself. "I got dessert brownies too..." She vaguely called out, and then to herself as she set the boxes down. "Why not."

Marley felt bad, because she knew she wasn't likely to be the greatest of roommates while she tried to deal with the issues that the re-marking had brought up.  But that was no reason to be rude, either, and Aston had been kind enough to offer some pizza so it would have been rude to turn down the offer to eat with her.  Smoothing her skirt down, she put on her best smile as she emerged from her bedroom.  "That sounds amazing, thank you."

Aston grinned, glad to see the roommate in question actually was there and she wasn't talking to herself. "I figure we can watch a movie while we eat?" Aston collapsed into the couch and reached for the remote, glad to put on anything mindless so it wasn't silent in the room. "My bad I already decorated for Christmas in here... if you have things you want to put up or Christmas ain't your thing I can definitely tone it down.."

Marley nodded, following Aston to the couch.  The movie was a good way to fill the silence, and it meant that she could feel a bit less pressure of speech while they relaxed.  "That sounds nice, thank you."  Taking a spot on the other end of the couch, she gave her head a quick shake.  "No, it's fine.  I love Christmas, so it's all okay.  It looks very nice."

"Thanks. I got a little pent up last holiday weekend and went a lil crazy." It hadn't even meant to be the thing she'd set out to do that day, but it looked nice so there were no regrets. Leading off of that Aston settled on a Christmas movie, the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas because it was one of the first to pop up. She reached for the disposable plates on the box and passed one over to her new roommate. "I just went with pepperoni and cheese, hope that's fine."

"If you can't go crazy over Christmas, what can you go crazy over?"  Marley accepted the plate and smiled anew as the familiar strains of the Grinch soundtrack began to play.  No matter how rough the last few days had been, there was something magical about Christmas that never went away.  "That's perfect," she nodded, "thank you.  I don't really have any dietary things, so I'm good with anything but anchovies.  Not because I'm allergic, but because they're disgusting."

Aston laughed and nodded in agreement as she loaded up her plate with a few slices. Anchovies were gross as hell. The Switch resigned to watching for a few moments, distracted by the opening credits and chewing. "Is it really strange so far?" She asked without much lead up, she never did shy away from bluntness. "Having a different role."

Marley grabbed one slice to start, deciding to test her appetite before going too crazy.  If she took more than she could eat that'd just be wasteful.  Letting herself be swept up a little by the movie and the rich taste of pizza, she looked over with a slightly startled expression at Aston's question.  Her immediate instinct was to do what she'd done with Maeve - refuse to talk about it.  But once again, her innate need to be nice won out.  "I'm...they got it wrong," she shook her head.  "I keep waiting for them to figure it out.  Because there's nothing Switch-like about me, you know?  At all."

There was almost an immediate need to apologize with the way that Marley looked at her but as soon as she'd replied the Switch could guess why. "You really think so?" Aston hesitated in asking, focusing more on her new roomie than the movie. It sounded doubtful that the school would make a mistake like that and it wasn't the first time Marley had said it to her. "It doesn't seem like they're gonna be making anymore changes."

Marley set her pizza down for a moment, trying to phrase her thoughts into a proper reply.  "No, they're probably not going to.  The counsellor told me the same thing.  It just doesn't feel right to me, you know?  It feels like being back in school and having your teacher hand you someone else's paper.  You know the answers aren't yours, but they keep trying to tell you they are."

Aston's eyebrows rose as she thought it over. She wouldn't have imagined it like that but now that Marley said it, that made sense. "I guess it's hard for me to understand because I've always been a Switch and I think Switches have a different feel on things, I've only just started learning to so..." Aston paused, audibly blowing out air "Yeah I don't know what I want of how to feel either." Following Marley she put her own food down and turned toward her more. "You're worried?"

It was a pleasant surprise to her, not only that Aston was willing to listen to her complain but that she seemed to understand what was being said.  It made the whole conversation a lot easier.  "That makes sense, if it's what you've always been then you're starting to get used to the idea.  But I'm sure figuring what you want will come in time."  She nodded, swallowing around the lump in her throat.  "Very.  I don't really know how to deal with suddenly being something else.  And it changes so much.  Like, I'm only in my first year but - not to brag - I am a good submissive.  I understand that role.  Being a Switch is just...something totally new."

It was nice to hear the confidence. Obviously Aston didn't know Marley but it was evident in the change of tone when she spoke about it that she truly believed that. "You're already ahead of most of us then." She said, meaning it. Aston barely had a grasp on either role, and she was still trying to navigate exactly how she connected with it. "I mean, at least you're still in your first year right? Gives you time to figure the rest out?"

A blush rose in Marley's cheeks.  She only hoped she hadn't come off as conceited with what was in her mind a very true statement.  "I was lucky," she admitted.  "I knew really early what my mark would be.  So I've had more time to get used to it."  Until they'd changed it on her.  "Hopefully.  Just, the whole idea of being Dominant, ever, makes me uncomfortable."

At that Aston's interest was really piqued. It wasn't uncommon for people to exercise their role before formal training, heck Aston knew people that never went to training school at all, and of course she had dabbled herself but from the sounds of it not nearly as successfully. Not wanting to pry, but feeling somewhat invested at that point, Aston picked her pizza back up and asked anyway. "Why do you think that is?"

If she'd stopped to consider it, Marley might have been surprised that she'd been drawn into a conversation.  But Aston was proving easy to talk to, and was actually listening, and that seemed to make all the difference.  "I don't understand the mindset, I guess?" Marley picked her own pizza back up and snuck a bite.  "I've never felt the need to be in control of someone else.  Being in control of me is enough work, you know?"

Aston gave a laugh, "Amen to that."  and mock cheers her half eaten pizza slice in the air. Already the Switch approved, Marley seemed like she'd be low drama and was really very sweet. "You know, come to think of it I never really felt that way either until I started going to class." It wasn't aimed at trying to talk Marley into anything she wasn't trying to be apart of, it had simply dawned on her just then. "I had submit though." She added then shook her head and brushed it off. "I didn't not like it but, it didn't go very well either. I think we all just have a lot to learn."

Marley grinned, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and glad that Aston had agreed.  "So the classes helped, do you think?  Or was it like putting an idea in your head that wasn't yours?"  It wasn't an accusation, just an honest question of what she had to expect going forward.  "You're not wrong there.  That's why we're all here, to learn the things that we don't know."

Aston held her fist out between them for Marley to bump, glad they had already found a pretty easy groove. "Exactly." It sucked that some people were forced to change up marks. If it had happened to her she probably would have been freaking out too, especially when she had just started to find her way to both sides of Switchood. "Classes at least gave me things to think about, and examples of how to apply myself in different ways." Aston hummed along with Whoville under her breath and broke out the bonus brownies. "Here." She offered, glad to share. She'd miss Charlotte but it didn't seem like Marley would be all that bad either.

The fist bump made her giggle slightly, the first time that had happened since finding out about her mark.  "That makes sense," Marley nodded.  "Maybe they'll do something for me too."  Even if she did doubt that.  Before she even realized Aston was doing it Marley was humming along too, because the end of the film had always touched her deeply.  "Thank you very much," she smiled, taking one of the brownies for herself.  "These look really good."

"I bet they will." Aston assured after unceremoniously downing a brownie in a few bites. She brushed her hands off and settled down into the couch, tugging the poinsettia print blanket she had draped over the back down into her lap. Aston spread it out and shuffled a bit more toward the center of the couch to give Marley the option of sharing the blanket. She grabbed the remote and tapped a few buttons to sheepishly start the movie over. "I... wasn't really watching it."

Marley only hesitated for a moment before polishing off her brownie as well, quickly making sure her hands were clean before taking one end of the blanket and pulling it over her as she got closer to Aston.  Giggling again, she shook her head.  "That's all right, I don't mind watching it again."

Aston slunk down and stretched an arm up over the back of the couch comfortably. "Cool." She said simply and turned the volume up more for them before she tossed the remote away. The second time through she had hardly moved, and was so full and relaxed the switch just about fell sleep.

The stress of the last few days caught up with her quickly, on top of the pizza and brownie, and by the time that the movie was halfway through she was leaning over onto Aston without even realizing.  And by the time it was over she was dead asleep on the other girl's shoulder, the first real rest she'd had in a while.

#thread: grinch and chill #char: aston jones

[sapphicunicorn]

Docile by K.M. Szpara (science fiction/gay)

Docile is a science fiction parable about love and sex, wealth and debt, abuse and power, a challenging tour de force that at turns seduces and startles. To be a Docile is to be kept, body and soul, for the uses of the owner of your contract. To be a Docile is to forget, to disappear, to hide inside your body from the horrors of your service. To be a Docile is to sell yourself to pay your parents' debts and buy your children's future. Elisha Wilder’s family has been ruined by debt, handed down to them from previous generations. His mother never recovered from the Dociline she took during her term as a Docile, so when Elisha decides to try and erase the family’s debt himself, he swears he will never take the drug that took his mother from him. Too bad his contract has been purchased by Alexander Bishop III, whose ultra-rich family is the brains (and money) behind Dociline and the entire Office of Debt Resolution. When Elisha refuses Dociline, Alex refuses to believe that his family’s crowning achievement could have any negative side effects—and is determined to turn Elisha into the perfect Docile without it.

TW: rape

I think we all can agree by now that I love hype trains. Whether it’s a video game or a book, or even an anime, I will find that hype train and join it and cherish it… until the day of reckoning appears. Let’s not bring names into this but we all know what happened with a certain science fiction video game, how it promised to bring something new and exciting with beautiful graphics and unexplored worlds. Docile is my No Man’s Sky. I want so much to love this book for the promises it made, and yet the execution left me empty. Besides the listed dub-con, which I could easily skip over while reading, everything sounded exciting and I thought we would explore this dystopian world of debt and dismantle the system. When I finished Docile and closed the book, my actual words were: “Yikes.”

I’m going to spoil the ending right now and no, I’m not sorry. They get together in the end! Now let me explain why I hate this. Why it’s the stupidest ending possible. Why it makes a book that I could stomach absolutely make my skin crawl. We follow Elisha Wilder as he applies to become a Docile, a person willing to give up autonomy in order to work off debt. They’re only given seven rights, one of which is to refuse a drug called Dociline. Dociline turns a person mindless; they’re totally compliant to any order and the drug is supposed to help erase memories of their traumatizing term. Because Elisha’s family has a bad history with Dociline, his mother still walking around like a drone after working her term, he decides he’ll refuse the injection. Alexander Bishop III is the heir to the Dociline company. While he’s working on a new serum, he’s informed he needs to take on a Docile because… boardroom politics? Which is how he finds Elisha. Alex is riding on the hope that he can ignore his new Docile while pleasing the board of directors and continue his work on the new Dociline serum--until Elisha, exercising one of his remaining rights, refuses Dociline. Alex uses this as an opportunity to prove he’s capable of anything, including stripping a man of his right to his own body and mind without the use of Dociline. If he can do that, surely he can run the company in the near future. Later in the book, Alex has nearly molded Elisha into the perfect slave when Alex has his “change of heart” after the major traumatizing event. Major, but not the first. Elisha still has nightmares--screaming-himself-awake, apologizing-for-interrupting-Alex’s-sleep kind of nightmares--from a previous experience and yet Alex never, over the months they’re together, gets him help. But at this point, Elisha is so broken he truly believes he’s in love with Alex. He believes Alex punishing him is his form of love and Elisha pours his heart out because he literally cannot function without Alex. Immediately after this event, when Alex should be worrying about Elisha’s physical state (but not mental, because this was what Alex wanted), he decides to end the contract and take Elisha back to his family--where Elisha has already been rejected once. Abandoned, broken, Elisha is expected to become a normal human again. Here’s the thing: there’s no dub-con. There’s no dubious consent anywhere in this book. It’s rape, plain and simple. Alex rapes Elisha as a means to control him, every single time. Don’t even consider there’s romance--don’t shelve it with your romance novels, don’t mark it on Goodreads as romance, don’t tell your friends it has romance. If you think this deserves to be marketed as a “dark romance,” just don’t. Please. Don’t even put this in with your BDSM books. One of my guilty reading pleasures is the BDSM genre. I do my research, figure out if the authors are really part of the lifestyle, and make informed purchases. I have many, many books that feature what could be considered “dark romance” and even live-in submissives. I’m not trying to climb onto a high horse while discussing Docile. I’m not trying to sound “holier than thou” or as if I don’t like the book because I’m too busy clutching my pearls. I’m saying if you come to Docile expecting it to resemble a BDSM dynamic--like many other reviews claim--it doesn’t. This is a story about slavery, not submission. Personally, I feel like this reads as a futuristic companion to C.S. Pacat’s Captive Prince--another story about rape and slavery, with the exception that Captive Prince had some world building. Docile does not. We see both condensed sides of the debt system--as a Docile with Elisha, as a Patron with Alex--and we’re told about the ways Dociles are protected, how Patrons have to check in every few months and give their Dociles family visits. We’re told about debtors’ prison. We’re told about hordes of Dociles living in Alex’s facility. We’re told about the wasteland where Elisa lived outside the city--was that ever explained? And we’re introduced to Empower Maryland, the underground rebellion, who I thought for sure would start to dismantle this system. Instead, we get courtroom drama thanks to them. But this dystopian world is never expanded on! I appreciated the dual POV. I feel we needed the chance to see Alex explain himself, but it doesn’t redeem him. Personally I felt both POVs were similar; sometimes I’d forget who we were following because the voices were nearly indistinguishable. Neither POV felt "real." They simply filled in their roles. And the ending--holy heavens above, the ending. It majorly upset me because it’s not responsible at all. Stockholm syndrome does not make a relationship! Do you truly want to love your abuser? You want to try a “real” relationship with a man who enslaved you and broke you? There’s no middle ground--Alex and Elisha cannot ever, in any form of fiction, have a real relationship. I’d have liked it more if Alex had shaken Elisha’s hand and thanked him for a few life lessons he’s late to learn. I’d have enjoyed it way more if Elisha spat in Alex’s face. Neither character grew from their situations. If we had avoided the ending, maybe gone with an ending where Elisha gives Alex a verbal lashing and walks away, then I’d say they learned something. Elisha falling into Alex’s arms after everything that happened is just irresponsible. Elisha blatantly admits he can’t tell if he’s in love with Alex or if he’s still brainwashed! But sure, let’s try a “real” relationship! In my opinion, there is only one redeeming quality in Docile. Between Elisha and Alex, we see two different families. Elisha’s big and caring, and flawed. Alex’s small, mostly friends, and carefully planned. Everything Elisha did, he did for his family. Although they turned against him after becoming a Docile, by the end, they were supportive and helped how they could. And when Alex’s family turned against him, he found comfort and support in his friends. All in all, Docile isn’t a bad read. It’s just boring, bland. The high society parties weren’t anything special. The pseudo-science is easily forgivable. The courtroom drama went on for so long and it felt like it didn’t really belong. It was just an odd ending to everything that happened--especially Elisha and Alex getting together. Yikes.

#book reviews #booklr #trigger warning #docile #science fiction #dubcon does not exist #km szpara

[biohackerblogger-blog]

Biohacking and Science: A solution for most of your problems

In this article I’m going to be discussing biohacking—what it is and the different aspects of human biology an individual can improve (or “hack”, if you want to call it that) to optimise their life and cognition. In the next blog I’ll discuss the specific improvements I’ve made in my life and their scientific justifications—with an in-depth focus on nutrition, supplementation and cognitive-enhancement.

Biohacking as defined by merriam-webster is “biological experimentation done to improve the qualities or capabilities of living organisms especially by individuals and groups working outside a traditional medical or scientific research environment”.

While that sounds dramatic, the term could also be described as do-it-yourself biology—making small, incremental changes to your diet, habits and life to optimise your cognition and life expectancy. This hobby likely originated in Silicon Valley, a place popular in many trendy self improvement hacks: The keto diet, intermittent fasting and microdosing to name a few.

We are living in an era of excess. Western supermarkets are packed full of processed, sugary, fatty products that people cling to as comfort food. Social media and smartphones have been tweaked to be as addictive as possible. Even television has been replaced by on-demand streaming services that provide countless hours of mindless oblivion to addicted viewers—so much so that “binge-watching” is now a recognized term in many dictionaries. This combination and more has led to the shortening of the average attention span.

Coincidentally, it feels like every other person in recent generations seems to suffer from some form of ADHD, depression or other mental health issues.

Me, technically a part of generation z, am no exception.

I’ve been an underperformer most of my school career, with every parent-teacher meeting ending the same way: “Alexandru is a very bright boy but he doesn’t seem to be reaching his potential in class.”

I daydreamed, lost focus often and was often unmotivated when tackling complex tasks. My mom has practiced psychiatry for 2 decades and during my last year of high school I saw one of her colleagues who eventually diagnosed me with ADHD.

This shook me. I had believed that I was just a lazy person, not working hard enough but now this doctor was basically telling me that it wasn’t my fault; That I had a learning disability that would always put me at a disadvantage to other “functional” people.

As I made my way through university the same issues kept coming up over and over again and I started feeling hopeless. Medication seemed to act as a bandaid on the problem, working as intended inconsistently. Is this what the rest of my life was gonna be like?—Craving achievement while lacking the motivation to acquire it?

Nahhhh, I wasn’t going to let some abstract diagnosis prevent me from prospering in life.

Enter biohacking:

In my spare time at uni I began researching ways of “curing” my ADHD. The goal: Improving my attention, motivation and cognition anyway I could. I’m a scientist, so it only made sense to solve my problems with science. Little did I know I wasn’t so much as curing a disorder as I was just finding ways to optimise my life using scientific knowledge. I tried different lifestyle changes and recorded the positive benefits of each one—Basically running my own scientific experiments on a sample size of 1. Biohacking is basically tweaking your biology to improve your life.

Diet

As I mentioned before, supermarkets today are full of horrible, delicious processed food. It’s expensive eating healthy and it’s difficult to resist the allure of a greasy portion of chips. Regardless, I think a large percentage of the population seriously underestimate how much your diet impacts your day-to-day life as a human being. A heavily debated study found that judges tended to give harsher sentences just before lunch due to hunger (This study has argued about for years). If even people who practice being impartial for a living are at the mercy of their own biology—that means so are you.

Your body is a complex machine, requiring certain amounts of macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats) and micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) to carry out all of it’s processes efficiently. If any of these numbers are skewed, the machine won’t run smoothly. You can optimise your diet in a number of ways depending on your goals, but the FDA and similar organizations provide recommendations as to how much of each nutrient an average individual requires in a day.

Many of the micronutrients have important roles in our day-to-day lives which becomes apparent when we are deficient. Magnesium plays a huge role in good-quality sleep while vitamin D is important for healthy bones and mood. The world health organisation provides guidelines for what they consider a healthy diet which contains healthy doses of all these nutrients. Obviously, we’re human, not superhuman and we can’t always have a perfect diet all the time. There’s no shame in supplementing your diet artificially, just don't use pills as a replacement for healthy eating habits. Getting blood work done can help you identify which vitamins and minerals you're deficient to inform your dietary changes or supplement purchases.

If you're looking to improve cognition, omega-3 fatty acids are a well-researched staple supplement that is found in high quantities in fish. I could write a whole article on cognitive enhancement and supplements—so I’ll save it for the next one.

If weight loss is your goal maybe consider reading up on the science of the keto diet (a fat heavy diet that pushes metabolism into burning fat) or experimenting with alternative eating habits like intermittent fasting. Hell, I hear great things about going vegan nowadays and you’d be saving the environment while you’re at it.

Play around with it, optimise it for your goals and give supplements a try.

Exercise

The NHS recommends 75-150 minutes of exercise a week for the average individual. Obesity continues to be a huge issue in this country and others so more still needs to be done to encourage public fitness. It seems that many people make the mistake of thinking of exercise as a distraction from more important things like careers and making money, especially as they get older. They say they’re simply too busy and can’t find the time but in reality they’re decreasing their potential to excel in other aspects of their lives. There’s no point in making money if you’re too fat and achy to enjoy spending it.

Exercise is important. As Socrates eloquently puts it:

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

Deep.

Endorphins produced by exercise  make us feel great, we sleep better, we have more energy, we are more engaged with our work—Not a whole lot of downsides. For men in particular weight training is a very well-researched method or raising testosterone levels. A hormone my generation seems to be in significant lack of but in need of due to its important properties. Testosterone has anxiolytic properties, lubricates social interactions and is involved in providing an array of physical health benefits too.

Exercise is free, there are no downsides and a plethora of benefits. It doesn’t so much matter what type of exercise you’re doing so much as you’re doing it on a regular basis. It will suck, especially if you’re not accustomed to regular exercise but once you make it a habit (takes around 21 days to make something a habit), you’ll stop thinking about it and it’ll happen automatically.

Biohacking sure sounds a lot like self-improvement eh?

Sleep

In today’s day and age a good night’s sleep has become a rare treat. It’s like taking a gamble every night and hoping you wake up rested. As a student studying in the UK, I feel like I’m probably the most qualified person to say that. Sleep is very important for humans as pretty much all of our physical processes are regulated to some extent by our biological clock. A clock set by our circadian rhythm (Aka sleep cycle). Small perturbations to our sleep can seriously knock our daily rhythm out of line. Memories are written into your long term memory, waste products are flushed from the brain and the body readies itself for the new day. Everyone is aware their performance drops after a poor night’s sleep.

Here are some things you can do:

Humans need to go through about 4-6 sleep cycles per night to function adequately.

                          Sleep cycle = 90 minutes +/-                  5 * 90m = 7.5 hours

Try to wake up after sleeping a multiple of 90 minutes. If you wake up during the middle of a cycle you’re more likely to feel groggy. 6 hours, 7.5 or 9 hours between bed and wake are what you’re looking for.

Avoid blue light before bed. I’m sure you’ve already heard this one but blue light from screens inhibits sleep. Try a blue light filter on your laptop—Flux is the free one I use and recommend.

Avoiding caffeine, sugar and carbs before bed works wonders for your sleep. A magnesium supplement does too.

Going to bed and waking up at the same time consistently will make sleeping easy and soon your whole body will adjust itself to the routine. The human body loves routine.

Anything else worth mentioning

Yes, meditation is a big one. Specifically mindfulness. If you haven’t already been preached to on the internet about the numerous benefits of meditation, it seems to improve pretty much everything about people.—The ultimate meta-habit for improving all aspects of living. It shows promise in ameliorating depressive symptoms, anxiety, self-control and a lot more.

The mobile app headspace provides a great starting point and for those that want a challenge and want to try their hand at a monk’s life check out Vipassana meditation. Their free week-long retreats are a crash course in mindfulness with lifelong benefits. I tried one this summer and was convinced it was a cult for the first 3 days.

I’ve seen huge improvement in my life after I started applying science to fix my problems. I hope I’ve managed to give an effective overview of my experience in biohacking and given you some well-researched places to get started. If you have a biological background I think it’s a shame not to use that background to optimise your life in every way you can.

Thanks for reading,

Alex

P.S. here’s a short rant:

I think (not all, but a lot) of the recent diagnoses of ADHD and depression could be “cured” by not treating it as an isolated malady caused by some bad genes and poor luck—but as a culmination of lifestyle choices and habits that could be improved upon. Exercise and diet should be the FIRST CHOICE intervention when it comes to treating things like ADHD and depression.

I believe diet and exercise should always precede a chemical solution to these ailments. There are hundreds of supplements and activities that have proven psychological benefits that could hugely benefit humans. Thanks again.

[eeveelutionsforequality]

Hey vape, i dunno if you have clinical anxiety specifically, but what do you do when you're feeling really anxious and it's out of control? I just had a pretty bad panic attack that lasted a few hours and I really thought I was gonna die because I felt like I couldn't breathe. My sister was around so I had an anchor this time, but what do i do when im alone? Sorry for dumping my problems on you, but you're the only person I know that would really understand my problem. Have a nice day :)

Don't feel like you have to apologize for asking for advice! You're not dumping your problems on me at all! I wouldn't say that I was okay with answering people's questions in regards to this sort of thing if I felt at all like I couldn't listen to people's problems!

I have phobias, OCD, generalized anxiety disorder, and a few other conditions that have it as a symptom, and how (or even if) I deal with it sort of depends on which is causing it and what sort of anxiety it is and why I'm anxious and what the circumstances are and all sorts of things.

Firstly though, have you been checked for asthma? I know that my anxiety is one of the worst triggers for my asthma, and a panic attack leading to an asthma attack creates this cycle of panic and breathlessness that really isn't good. I'd recommend just making sure of that, if you can.

If you're having a panic attack that affects your breathing, try to remove yourself from any sources of panic (for example, if it's an annoying but not dangerous or warning noise, like a ticking clock, cover your ears or go to another room) and just focus on getting your breathing in order.

At 8:05 in this video, the Anxiety character runs over a breathing exercise with Thomas that you can repeat to get your breathing in order: https://youtu.be/wr17Kq5bmtI

Also, I do recommend that entire series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYA7DZ_sbUzvB1l6KsO5LZV2rrk2u1xl4

While viewing parts of yourself as different, separate entities isn't necessarily good for you if taken to the extreme (in fact that can be detrimental), viewing a side of yourself as something with a more complex array of causal factors and a need for your care and compassion is actually really really helpful, and Thomas handles explaining things really tactfully (there's also quite a bit of advice scattered amidst various episodes about dealing with anxiety).

I saw a post on here about viewing your anxiety as something that's afraid and needs your love and calming, and I do try to view it somewhat like that - like, I try not to think of it as a corruption in my brain that's attacking me, but more like a part of me that's scared and that I need to care for and work to understand.

Because of my agoraphobia, being outside is really hard on my anxiety - everything in my head just becomes a fuzzy mush as soon as I step out of my front door, it's like a half-dissociated state where I feel like I'm mostly on auto-pilot because I'm too confused and stressed to really concentrate on anything that I'm doing, and sometimes I'll do really stupid things (like pick up entirely the wrong shopping) because I'm too inside my panicked thoughts to actually pay attention to what my body is doing. Other times I can get so panicked that I collapse when I'm outside.

If I'm at home alone and I get super anxious, irritable, or angry (or some combination therein) - I'll often put on really loud and really angry music, and work through the emotions in a daydream instead. Marilyn Manson has been my choice of artist over the last few days, but it varies... Combichrist, Angelspit, Aesthetic Perfection, Rammstein, Otep, Metallica, Mindless Self Indulgence, that sort of thing. I used to shut myself in this really small cupboard, but I've taken to just hiding under a duvet lately because that's way more comfortable and easier on the joints. Then I'll usually daydream about a scenario in which I can just violently beat on something to the music (zombie apocalypse, superhero battle, that sort of thing).

There's more kinds of anxiousness and more weird personal coping mechanisms that I have, but I don't particularly know how helpful those would be to talk about here, to be honest. Some of them (like the intensity of the daydreams because of MaDD, or the fact that I have DID so sometimes stress will trigger a switch) aren't so much implementable coping mechanisms as they are my brain just glitching itself into somehow working with its abysmal circuitry. Others of them (like if I'm trying to deal with the anxiousness from psychosis or intrusive thoughts) aren't always the healthiest or safest coping mechanisms.

I think if you're alone and having a panic attack, the first thing to do is to get away from any physical sources of anxiety and focus on getting your breathing back to normal. You won't die - try not to add those concerns to the already too large pile of worries.

Then, once your breathing is more steady and you can keep that up, try some grounding techniques - hugging a pet or a teddy bear, stroking the fur/material, repeating some positive affirmations ("It's going to be okay, I'm okay, I'm safe" sorts of things), and keeping your breathing steady. Counting something like beads on a bracelet can be really helpful.

If there's something that you have to deal with immediately, then get that over with as quickly as possible (for example, if there's a spider that's caused the panic attack, kill it, remove it, or cover it with a bowl/cup as quickly as you can). Then repeat any calming techniques as necessary.

If you like maths or a TV show or something, then there might be something else that you could say/do to distract and calm your mind - I sometimes do maths equations in my head if I feel an oncoming panic attack (for example, 1+1 is 2, 2+2 is 4, 4+4 is 8, 8+8 is 16, 16+16 is 32, and on and on in that pattern, because it's a progression that gets more difficult as it goes along so it eases me into being distracted), but some people might sing a song from their favourite video game, or repeat a particularly long quote that a favourite character says, or something like that.

After that, distractions can be good for a little while - watching a half an hour TV show, listening to music, playing a video game, or something that requires just enough concentration to keep you gripped but not enough to be a strain - don't rush yourself into trying to think and plan, just relax but don't give yourself space to overthink. I've also found that cleaning my teeth is good for that - I clench my jaw a lot when I'm panicking, so cleaning my teeth for a few minutes really helps with the pain that causes.

There's also learning mindfulness techniques - but that's a process, it's not something that you can necessarily just implement tomorrow. It's definitely worth researching and worth considering as a more long-term solution. Being able to neutrally observe emotions and situations, to listen to the worries in your mind non-judgmentally, and so on, can be really good for maintaining a calm state and for actually tackling some of the causes of the panic.

Similarly, talking to a professional is an important long-term solution.

A warm drink also really helps me after the panic has died down - preferably something without caffeine and with marshmallows.

I know some people who've decorated little shoeboxes with wrapping paper and filled them with calming and comforting objects - textures that help with grounding, fond memories in photograph form, cute toys or teddies, positive quotes, or whatever helps them feel good. When they're anxious, they go to the shoebox and look through it for a little while until they feel better.

Honestly though, there are times when it just kind of feels like I have to remind myself that the panic won't last forever, and wait it out, and then work on getting myself back together after it's over - if I keep trying to fight it and worrying about it, then that only adds more strain. The music really helps with that, with just kind of accepting that I'm feeling things and that I'm going to feel them for a bit, but then they're going to go away and I can get up and have a warm drink and watch some mindless TV and start to feel like myself again.

I know that some people are helped by phoning a loved one and talking it through with them - but since phone calls themselves can be a source of anxiety (they are for me, given all of my issues with my voice and speaking at all), I don't know how effective that would be for you.

I hope that there was something in there that helped! I've been awake for about twenty-two hours now, and I've barely had any sleep for the last few nights, so I'm sorry if exhaustion means that I'm not at my best lately.

~ Vape

#Mod Vaporeon #anxiety tw

[jmaria200]

Guidelines for Surviving American Culture Now

America is a country liberties, wealth, and technological advancement that are often unheard of in much of the world. We can generally marry who we choose, vote for who we want too, and our freedom of speech is protected. Our poorest citizens still have more than most of Bangladesh. But it would be naive to think that such benefits do not come at a cost. We are a people with a crises of identity as we strive live up to lofty enlightenment goals set by our founding fathers and fail to repeatedly. Our current society is marked by predatory capitalism, degradation of social welfare, and inequality fostered in part of a rapid technological expansion and a societal decline. We’re no where near anarchy but, realistically, these factors have eaten away at the organization foundations that support everyday life increasing the likelihood of being exploited. I’ve brought together guidelines, some which are researched and some common sense, to hopefully help bolster the chance of healthy living in today’s America.

1.) Avoid commercials in any form. They’re usually meant to make you feel insecure or sell you stuff you don’t need. Listen to public radio stations without commercials, mute or switch television, and radio stations when commercials come on. Subscribe to streaming channels that don’t have commercials like Netflix. Educate yourself on products and places out there instead of being fed information by advertisers.

2.) In fact, try to limit television and other media as much as possible. It is a very America past time and actually can keep you isolated from other people that can make your life more exceptional.

3.) Ditto for computer and your phone.(Wait did I advocate for putting down the phone. Oh, no. Not one of those people!) Yes, these are tools that have their place in our society and should remain there.  When they become almost a way of life (think of two people sitting at a table together looking at their phones) things have gone to far.

4.) Instead have real hobbies. After you pull away from the electronics, you might find that you have time for maybe taking up dancing or building models.

5.) Avoid the typical American diet, especially processed sugars. I recommend reading books by authors like Michael Pollan that advocate for whole, natural foods. You’ll probably lose weight and feel much better.

6.) Cook your own food and eat in as much as possible. If the food is tasty and relatively healthy, the company is welcome, and the ambience is amazing, yes, enjoy your night out at a restaurant. This is a special moment. Eating out should be special. I think in this country we’ve become enamored with eating out because we’re tired, lazy, busy, etc. We drag ourselves to grim, sterile places and suck down greasy food. This perspective has spawned America’s fast food nation and it has helped make us sickly.  We even export fast food to other countries. It is something we are known for and that is not good. This is a case again where people who want to make money don’t always have our best interest at heart. Even sit down restaurants can put a lot of fat, salt, and sugar in their foods. Sometimes it’s just about appealing to our urges. When someone else prepares our food we just don’t really know what is in there. When we make our own food, we can have more control over our diet and what we put in our bodies. We can choose to eat whole, natural foods instead of stuff created in laboratories. If we are demoralized about our lives then we will often won’t care what we put in our bodies, which is not caring about ourselves.

7.) Treat media, social, and otherwise, with care. Just like we should be careful what we let in our bodies so should we be with what we let in our heads. Yes, I have a Facebook account, but no I don’t believe it is anyway a true substitute for a face to face friendship. Once again use social media a tool to get something done or keep in touch with already established friends, but you’ll probably end up alone and depressed if you actually think most of those followers are true friends or that everyone else’s life is perfect as seen in posted pictures. Media in general can sell you on many opinions and ideas. It’s up to you to decide who you are going to listen too and about what. This is when being educated and a critical thinker really helps.

8.) So read (and sometimes watch) stuff that informs you, challenges you, and gets you thinking. Yes,we can all veg out on mindless entertainment. The American movie industry has proven that time and again through the years. You can also go through life mindlessly as well unsure and afraid about what is happening around you and rallying to causes you don’t know much about and watching the institutions of this country crumble. Plenty of business people and crooked politicians will love you for it. But if you come armed with an informed perspective then you can be an active citizen of a democracy and standing for something.

9.) On that note, get out and make connections. Join associations. Volunteer. Attend a civic meeting. These have become lost arts in our culture of sitting home and streaming media. Such activities will almost always improve your life as you meet new people. Don’t worry so much about what people think. If you’re authentic people will connect with you. Everyone is insecure out there in some way like you.

10.) Really understand what it means to be authentic vs inauthentic. I didn’t know the answer to this riddle for most of my life. I usually thought being authentic as having the near perfect life, but that is a distortion like the pictures on Facebook. Authenticity is something that comes from knowing and loving who you are and accepting that faults and all. It also means that because you are comfortable and compassionate with yourself you will want to be that way with others. Being inauthentic is often connected to fear and anxiety about ourselves and the world around us. Fear contributes to insecurity and making poor choices especially in the face of stress. Modern American life has gotten especially stressful as we are afforded less and less control over our lives therefore...

11.) You will need to learn how to manage chronic stress, anxiety, and other negative thoughts and emotions if you want to live authentically. Human beings were designed with the same fight or flight response as all other living things on this planet. It helps keep us alive. But modern society has plenty of ways to send this system into overdrive where we find ourselves anxious and worrying. Fear and anxiety contribute to poor values and a break down of social ties.  Rule of thumb is if your doing productive worrying over real problems that’s okay but if it’s just plain general anxiety, that is probably a bigger problem that needs to be rooted out. You will probably have to make some decisions about changing your values and your lifestyle, which can be good.

12.) Beware of those who are inauthentic. They’re more common than you think. Human beings are social creatures who are actually designed to bond with each other with compassion and empathy and, while we are all inauthentic or insecure at times to others, there are those who are inauthentic about who they are. They often lack empathy and seek to antagonize and take advantage others. These are often people who were raised by insensitive parents or caretakers and developed personality disorders like narcissism, Machiavellian, or psychopathy.  Essentially they are people who are self centered and have questionable or no morality. Often they can end up in positions of power as they are ambitious and savvy. In a climate of fear these personalities can gain influence and control by manipulating others as is increasingly common in modern America. Being self loving and compassionate towards ourselves and each other is the best defense.

13.) But do listen to reasonable people with different opinions. Our somewhat quarantined lifestyles combined with the constant influx of information has divided Americans along many different lines. We tend to exist in echo chambers where we can hear our opinions and beliefs bounced back at us and never really know what the other side believes. You might be surprised that if they’re rationale they’re probably more similar than you think. 

14.) Get out in nature. Today there is so much living we can do in our houses and office buildings staring at screens. But I’m not sure I would call that living. Even on nice days I rarely see people outside or outside for long in my neighborhood. Humans lived close to nature for thousands of years. Our separation from it is only a recent phenomenon. Research has shown that nature can help with emotional and psychological well being and it’s good exercise. Also you’ll be more likely to go green as much as possible if you actually see what is out there to save.

15.) Opt for public transportation whenever possible. America fell in love with the automobile and fell hard. After all it contributes to our privacy and sense of independence. One could say now we’re having some buyers remorse as we sit in seemingly endless traffic jams. I don’t know about you, but I think driving brings out some of the worst in people too especially in a time of social corrosion where road rage incidents are climbing. Yes, your city may not have much in the way of a public transportation system, like many American cities, but still use it when you can. Again you will be helping the environment.

16.) Go green whenever possible.  At this point in human history, this guideline is common sense.  We depend on this planet and we have damaged it. Not trying to something about this issue is more about lack of willpower than lack of information and understanding. Yes, going cold turkey on driving a car or using plastic is probably not realistic right now, but do the little things like recycling, limiting water usage, pushing for greener options with your wallet, etc.

17.) Be educated about education. Sure it is mandated and can be great  to have an education in this country. Life today requires too much not to be. But be smart about your education. Be aware of the state of American public school systems that still churn out students on an industrial level. Be aware of the business nature of colleges that often sell one on the promise of a bright future with a large price tag attached. Determine first if college is even right for you.

18.) Football is a game.  I have often considered European futbol (soccer) a drawn out, dull sport. What the hell is so exciting about people running up and down a field for hours? Where’s the big scores, amazing tackles, and seemingly constant last minute heroics of American football? Yes, the National Football League boasts huge scores, salaries, and profits. Sunday is the day devoted to football and the Superbowl is practically a holiday. Fans often live and die by their team. Heaven help a losing season. On the other hand, my concern is how the NFL is really slick marketing of a product where the more superficial aspects of current American ideology: winning and celebrity leave behind good solid character and sportsmanship that people should be aspiring too in society, especially children. How often do you hear about a player that is cheered for getting out there and just doing a solid job? Football tends to play into the cultural paradigm that being exceptional is what matters and anything less, well, ends up in the Canadian Football League. Not to mention the most exceptional team today, the New England Patriots, has constantly been accused of cheating and stealing. It is a league whose power often allows it to defines it’s own narrative forgetting the darker side of what is by definition a violent sport where people sacrifice their bodies( Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy anyone?). Also when it comes to the endless excitement, I’ve heard there is only eleven minutes of actual action in a football game. Eleven minutes! The rest of that three to four hour game is people walking up and down a field, huddling up, kicking off, and most of all commercials poured on so thick that it is nearly suffocating.(Take that soccer). Consider the cost of a single football game with parking, food, beer, etc can range into the hundreds of dollars for that eleven minutes of action. Whether the experience is worth the money depends on the person, but, in an age when less and less of us have expendable income, the ‘true’ fans still seem to fork over the money without a second thought. When it comes the fanatics raging in their chairs, it generally it’s just not healthy when one’s emotional well being hinges on anything outside of themselves, sports or otherwise. The guys on the field should know this as well. Either way it is awkward to watch a grown man have temper tantrum in his living room or on the sidelines over a lost game. Don’t get me wrong. Many NFL players, staff, etc. are amazing people and athletes who work their asses off and deserve what they earn, but these achievements and the league as a whole should be kept in a realistic light.  The NFL is an organization that needs to be held accountable for what it does and how it treats its players, its fans, and, in the end, football, like a soccer, is a game for entertainment.  We are entertained and then we turn off the TV or drive home from the stadium.

19.) Spirituality and religion: Anyone who has lived in America realizes that American life is heavily influenced by organized religion especially the many forms of Christianity. While some form of spirituality, or belief in something bigger than oneself, is considered part of emotional maturity being part of a organized religion is a choice. This idea tends to get lost as people are often indoctrinated by their parents, or other caregivers, and this grooming is reinforced by the large community or society.  Such an omission is common as it opens the door for dissension in faiths. In other words, while one can leave a religion, one often doesn’t because of potentially being ostracized. I believe that if the faith one was brought up in no longer fits, then one has the right to follow their desires and beliefs on what spirituality means to them.  If one does remain in an organized religion I heavily recommend doing so with eyes wide open. While there are plenty of decent people serving religious mission, the blind faith religions engender is often allows exploitation especially in current times when people can feel lost and vulnerable and are looking for answers. Despite their supernatural underpinnings, religious organizations are organizations run by humans, therefore, they are vulnerable to human error.

20.) Get enough sleep: Today’s America wants to keep you doing things and distracted as much as possible, which keeps you off the sheets. Since the invention of the light bulb and the electric grid, humans can now live well into the night, however no one told our biorhythms that still operate on the original daylight schedule. Less than seven hours of sleep is typically not enough for the average human being despite the modern ‘remedy’ that is caffeine. A self professed night owl, I’m as guilty as the next guy when it comes to staying up late. Daily life is taxing on living creatures and sleep is the brain and bodies way of hitting the pause button to regroup and heal. Putting it bluntly, if you don’t sleep enough you are wearing your body and mind down overtime and you can probably expect a host of health problems.

21.) Be skeptical of mainstream culture and “common sense”. Doing what everyone else is doing seems mandated especially when you’re a teenager and trying to figure out who the hell you are. When you mature enough you figure out who you are and understand just pointless it was to want to be like others.  

[vox]

I trained myself to be less busy — and it dramatically improved my life

I am a robot, programmed to obliterate my to-do list. During the day, I direct a research laboratory, write papers, and teach classes as a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona. Come 4:30 pm, I run a kid limousine service, shuttling between various activities, preparing dinner, helping with homework and the evening routine. I scurry through these activities — often missing the moments of joy embedded in everyday life — until I have some sort of nightly electrical shortage, then crash out on the couch. I reboot in the morning and do it all again.

I am addicted to busyness. I am embarrassed to say it, largely because I am lucky to have a wonderful life, a great career and, to be fair, the struggles, demands, and slings-and-arrows are all of my own doing (especially the part about having kids; I know I was there for that).

I created this mess — a life at breakneck speed from the moment I wake until I finally watch 30 minutes of Netflix before drifting off. But, I recently hit rock bottom, feeling as if I was going through the motions of my life rather than truly living it.

I’m not the only one who feels overwhelmed — you probably do too

I don’t think I am alone in my feelings about busyness, nor do I think these feelings are especially new for the average working adult. I might be alone at my rock bottom, but there are many indicators that we are feeling more over-committed, over-scheduled, over-tired, and over-burdened than ever before.

Brigid Schulte, in her 2014 book, Overwhelmed, writes incisively about this trend, “So much do we value busyness, researchers have found a human ‘aversion’ to idleness and need for ‘justifiable busyness.’” My favorite example from her book: Researchers can track the rise of busyness in holiday cards dating back to the 1960s. In holiday cards, Americans used to share news about our lives (the joys and sorrows of the year), but now we’re more likely than ever to mention how busy we are as well.

As a clinical psychologist, I have worked with many people who are trying to make substantial changes — from improving a marriage to overcoming generalized anxiety or depression. The idea that these changes begin with acknowledging that there’s a problem is a truism. Personal responsibility is the vehicle for behavior change. When it came to my busyness, though, I had what might be described as extreme difficulty looking beyond the hamster wheel. (Professionally, people in my line of work call this “very little insight.”)

I don’t think I am busier than anyone else. My wife and friends are just as busy as me. I think the difference is that I became aware of my busyness and started hating it. I was feeling claustrophobic in my own life. I asked my wife if I could retire and get some time back in the day. (She said no.) Then, I started to wonder about the opposite of busyness. I thought immediately of the slow food movement. I needed a slow food movement in my everyday life.

I realized busyness had devoured my values

The first change took root for me about 18 months ago when the graduate program that I direct started teaching Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (pronounced as the single word ACT) to our doctoral students, who are future clinical psychologists. ACT is a scientifically-validated psychotherapy treatment for a range of mental health problems. Basically, it’s a form of talk therapy.

A central tenant of ACT is that emotional pain is driven in large part by getting over-involved in difficult experiences and thoughts (that is, going over-and-over things in our mind; getting stuck in our experiences; and being unable to create any psychological distance between yourself and the terribleness of things). Consequently, when we become stuck on or in our emotional pain, we go through each day in a way that is disconnected from our core values — the essential principles that, ideally, come to guide our lives. In ACT, value-centered living is paramount, and a big part of the treatment is to help people separate themselves from the painful language in their heads (“This is so awful. I feel so terrible.”) to get on with the business of living a meaningful life.

As I learned more about ACT and started incorporating its methods into my psychotherapy practice with clients, something important dawned on me: Busyness devoured my values. I was working, parenting, loving, emailing, and exercising in a sort of mindless way, just doing and doing. Busyness is not, nor was it ever, a guiding principle in my life. Yet, I had let the inertia of doing take deep root without realizing what was happening to me. To get more out of life — more meaning, more joie de vivre — I needed to start doing less and to become more conscious about my choices.

How I started to reclaim my life from busyness

I started with a simple value: being outside. I am a regular exerciser, but I was losing touch with being outside and moving my body through space. I began walking more, that’s all. It was not a hard change to make — I just park a little further from work and hoof it a bit more or I go for a nice stroll during lunch. It would not be an overstatement to say that an additional 40 minutes a day of walking just two or three times a week has changed me in a profound way. Walking provides time to think, to be energized by nature, and to feel less frenzied. Quite dramatically, I am much less of a robot and much more of a human being.

Next, I focused on valuing idleness. I do not mean being a sloth, only that I was coming to see the value of doing as little as possible for long periods of time. I just finished Tim Kreider’s incredibly thoughtful and hilarious book of essays, We Learn Nothing. The audiobook includes a bonus chapter entitled Laziness: A Manifesto. Kreider writes, “This busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness. Obviously your life cannot possibly be silly, or trivial, or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked every hour of the day. All this noise, and rush, and stress seem contrived to cover up some fear at the center of our lives.”

I cannot say if I my busyness was a hedge against some sort of existential emptiness, but all the doing certainly left me feeling empty in the end. Now, with idleness in mind, I just park myself on the couch as often as possible and see what happens. Mostly, I am looking for an opportunity to enjoy the moments of life in an unstructured way; I am looking for more play. In my idleness last night, I spent a long time just tickling my 5-year-old daughter, pretending to scare her, and lying on my back with her in “airplane position” while she perfected a move she called the hummingbird. That was the best half-hour of my year so far. What is more, I’ve found that the less I work, the better my work actually is in the end, from the ability to attend to students and clients to the creative energies needed for doing science.

As part of my effort to create time and space for doing less, I also got off Facebook. At first, I was simply trying to escape the toxicity of the election on social media. In time, though, I realized I was also escaping an attentional black hole, one with an incredible gravitational pull. I would never willfully stand in the middle of a room noisy room with everyone screaming for my attention, yet this is best metaphor I can think of to describe my mind on Facebook. I was weak and could not resist its forces, fair enough, but I also started to see it as filler and fluff. When I got past my FOMO and let it go, I gained many moments back in my day.

I’ve also tried to get serious about laughing more. For me, busyness’s neighbor is seriousness. Seriousness is over-rated, and I feel much healthier and even childlike when I am not taking myself so seriously, and when I am trying to make other people laugh.

Finally, my relationships. In my days of busyness, I loathed the work pop-in; too many unscheduled interruptions. Now, I’m coming to appreciate people dropping by to say hello and to joke around (see: laughter). My door is a little more open, so to speak. I am also focusing on my local drinking club, where a few friends have been going for beers together for several years. Sometimes, I am too busy and have to miss, but that really bothers me now. Friendships are sustenance, just like food.

Have I sustained these changes? Sort of. I am working as much as ever and find it hard to not get sucked into the trappings of busyness. Sometimes, I look at my schedule shout to myself, “Too much, too much!” When this is the case, I just go for a walk. Or, I just get on the floor and mess with my kids. Or, I follow the mantra of our club, “Relax, have a homebrew.” (If my busyness freak-out is in the morning, I do wait for the homebrew, in case you’re wondering. At least until lunch.)

By and large, though, I am feeling better than I have in a long time — more deliberate in the choices I make, more connected to the people around me, and more energized for the demands of the day. The surprising irony here, for me at least, is that by doing less, I am getting way more out life. I have banished my inner robot.

David Sbarra, PhD, is a professor of psychology at the University of Arizona. His new ebook, Love, Loss, and the Space Between, is available on Amazon.

#writing #essay #first person #stress #anxiety #health #mental health #science

[hecallsmehischild]

End Weight Goal & Side Effects

Since the last time I talked about eating and weight loss, Sergey and I made several lifestyle changes and I’ve finally hit my end weight goal. I want to cover what we’ve been doing as well as the unexpected side effect that has cropped up for me, as I have not found discussions of this side effect anywhere online.

Last time I wrote up our methods, we were just beginning to experiment with the idea of 48-hour fasts and we were restricting our calorie counts by the day. We still struggle with any sort of moderation and at a certain point we were not making headway with the calorie restriction plan. So we moved further toward intermittent fasting. Here are three terms I’ll be using to describe what we’ve done:

Eating day: A day when we can eat whatever we want whenever we want all day.

Fasting day: A day when we can have as much tea/coffee as we want, plus extremely limited snack (tomato bowl, minimal trail mix, etc) to keep up blood sugar levels.

Grazing day: Slightly more allowance to eat than a fasting day.

At first we experimented with different proportions of Eating and Fasting days, but what we settled on in the long run was that two Fasting days followed by an Eating day worked best. It was rough getting into this cycle at first, and if we interrupted it with more frequent Eating days and started the cycle over again, it was difficult. Sergey often reported dizziness or headaches, and I would be sluggish and constantly thinking about food. But after a couple weeks of eating in this cycle, our bodies adjusted and it felt natural.

In addition to this, we took exercise a lot more seriously. Exercise has always been difficult for me to get into. Sergey often had to drag me to get involved. For many months, we played DDR for about an hour every Fasting day, which helped me be more interested in exercise. The combination of music and competition was a major motivating factor. However, once we were practiced enough to break into the “hard” levels of songs, the workout was no longer making us sweat as hard as we wanted and we were losing interest. Around December, Sergey proposed that we try jogging in the local park. I picked up a pair of cross-trainer shoes (to avoid repeating a case of shin splints I remembered from high school) and started jogging with him.

It was rough. It was torture. It was hideously difficult. I didn’t understand how jogging could be so much harder than playing DDR on Hard. However, in the course of a couple months, Sergey and I found ourselves pushing further than our high school selves could have ever imagined going. “Your high school self wouldn’t believe what you’re doing right now!” was a constant refrain. At our best, we kept up nearly continual jogging for just over a full mile.

It gets unbearable outdoors in Houston once early Summer hits, so at that point we signed up for the gym. We’ve been going almost every day for a couple months now, and both of us leave absolutely dripping. Sergey does 45 minutes on the exercise bike, pedaling as hard as he can. I do 20 minutes jogging on the treadmill (ramping up angle and speed over time) and another 20 on the elliptical (ramping up difficulty level as I can).

A couple months ago, I finally hit my end weight goal of 150 lbs. At my checkup, my doctor confirmed I was at a good weight and that my cholesterol was normal. I’m thrilled. Very soon, I’m going shopping for new pants, shorts, and a swimsuit that will fit me. However, there has been one side effect which I haven’t seen addressed anywhere.

In March of 2020, I wrote an account of a disturbing incident I had while in Breckenridge on my first ever ski trip:

Later that night, as I tried to go to sleep, anxiety kicked in hard. I recall, now, that on the slopes I said to myself that I would pay the panic bill later, that I had to get down the mountain somehow, and I wonder if I delayed the reaction. Between that, altitude, attack, a what-have-you combination of factors, I lost all rationality. I was convinced that if I went to sleep, I would have a skiing nightmare and be back on the mountain all night, completely out of control. I wrought myself up so much, I ended up sick in the bathroom. I shook and shivered under my blankets for a long time, unable to push through anxiety to get to the sleep that I KNEW would straighten out my brain. Finally, I grabbed my phone, pulled up Spotify, and turned on Enya. With her soothing Celtic tones in my ears all night, I finally fell asleep.

What I didn’t know was that this incident would repeat itself every few months on an ongoing basis. Characteristic of my weird fits were:

Nausea (with about 60% chance of throwing up)

Uncontrollable, irrational negative thoughts

Panic-attack level anxiety sustained for the whole fit

Chills and shaking

Inability to sleep until fit has passed

It feels like hell. Like it will never end, that this is my new state of being forever. When the fit passes, it’s a very clear, dramatic, and instant difference where mental fog parts and my muscles relax and I am no longer terrified about whatever irrational thing my brain seized on. Each fit lasts between 4-6 hours (with one exceptional fit that lasted 9 hours) and while some effects can be mitigated, it can not be stopped by anything. I can only endure. The best thing I found to do is play a video game until it is over, because a game is mostly mindless, but engages me in action just enough to take the edge off full consciousness of what is going on in my mind and body. I am non-functional during these fits.

At first, the fits only showed up after I ate super greasy food. I thought this made sense because I have changed what I eat and how I eat so much that my body rejects high levels of grease as poison. So, we deleted certain restaurants off our list. Most of our home-cooking was not that greasy, so we didn’t need to modify there. Then I started having these fits in response to over-eating on an Eating day, even if it was good home-cooked food. This, too, I ascribed to a sort of eating that my body deemed poisonous and was rejecting, and tried to be more careful about eating at gluttonous levels. This happened throughout 2020 every couple of months.

Around November, I started having these fits every week or two. I had them if I stepped even a little bit out of line with eating. I started getting borderline superstitious about what could possibly be causing this. I tried switching all my carbs to whole wheat. I tried setting a hard don’t-eat-after-this-time-of-evening limit. I refused to take a hot bath after having a full stomach. For about a week after each fit, I would eat very slowly and with a lot of anxiety that I would trigger another fit if I ate the wrong way or ate the wrong thing. Nothing I did guaranteed that I wouldn’t have a fit. When I finally had a milder version of the fit on a Fasting day, I realized that food was not causing the fit, but that food might just be exacerbating a condition that was happening anyway.

Sergey mentioned studies about fat cells, and how the body will often store toxins as far from organs as possible, usually in fat cells. The frequency of my fits going up coincided with an increase in strenuous exercise and my beginning to drop weight faster than usual. In addition, I’m at an age where my body doesn’t take strain as well as it used to (apparently that happens in early thirties, to my shock) while I was putting my body under levels of strain it was unused to. It isn’t a perfect theory, but the best working theory we have is that as I burn through the oldest layers of fat I have, I’m also releasing old toxins into my bloodstream to burn off, and this is what is messing with my system. Indeed, once I reached my goal weight and exchanged my Fasting days for Grazing days, the fits decreased in frequency.

I still have the fits once every month or two as I’m learning how to maintain my current weight (as opposed to increasing or dropping it). The good news is, I’m more aware that these things have an end even if I just barely believe it in the middle of a fit. “This too shall pass” has been on my quote board for months. And even though this has been a bizarre and hellish side effect, I am not sorry for any of the adjustments I’ve made in my lifestyle. I am at a healthy weight, I eat better, and miracle of miracles I actually look forward to my exercise sessions. Foods that aren’t good for me have even begun to taste less attractive, and though that makes me kind of sad sometimes (for example, ice cream is starting to lose its addictiveness) I know that means sensors I previously broke are finally healing and functioning correctly.

Here’s to the next learning curve: learning to stay at the right weight and not go in either unhealthy direction.

#rlchild #weight loss #eating #if you have issues with eating please be warned

[wikimakemoney]

Chaotic communication: COVID-19 is rewriting our cultural rules of connection

30-second summary:

Not only are face-to-face chats more frequent, they’re increasingly unannounced, unplanned and unavoidable. A jarring juxtaposition to our pre-COVID habits. It’s communication chaos.

While it seems haphazard, each call, chat and interaction is an expansion of community that chips away at our cultural fear of IRL intimacy and democratizes digital communities.

This migration gives brands a mandate to expand their offerings to bigger, more diverse groups of consumers as they use live-streaming and digital tools to build new communities all over the country.

The foundational cracks in the influencer veneer have been growing over the past few years, but the COVID crisis provides a magnifying glass that’s amplifying influencer’s social media shortcomings.

Wholesome, positive –if not strange and mindless– content has become a balm to cure our anxiety, a form of self-care that fills a void and provides a sense of calm that sheet masks and sourdough cannot.

When we emerge post-COVID, shell-shocked, knowing that catastrophe can hit again at any moment, we’ll still want straightforward talk from brands. Brands need to learn this lesson quickly if they hope to pivot successfully in the ‘new normal.’

Talk to any Millennial or Gen Z’er two months ago, or… text them; they would say there are fewer things more anxiety provoking than actual, in-real-time phone calls. The abruptness; the uncontrollableness; the awkward pauses. But that was the Old World. In the solitude of COVID induced quarantine, a craving for intimacy and personal connection means consumers, once notoriously adverse to spontaneous, face-to-face communications, are now clamoring to hear each other’s voices and see each other’s face.

Verizon fielded over 800M phone calls per day within the first two weeks the country was locked down; the word “Zoom” has become a stand-in to mean any “video chat,” and apps like Houseparty have seen downloads increase 70 fold.

Not only are face-to-face chats more frequent, they’re increasingly unannounced, unplanned and unavoidable. A jarring juxtaposition to our pre-pandemic habits. It’s communication chaos.

Quarantine and the COVID crisis have totally rewritten our cultural rules of communication. But the frantic ways we’re corresponding now will likely shift the way we connect long beyond the end of lockdown.

Shift 1: A quest for intimacy in digital communities

Your bestie going live. Your boss going live. Your bank going live. When we were ordered to stay home, it only took a matter of days for everyone to start broadcasting themselves, most times to seemingly chaotic and confusing ends.

Recently on IG live, comedian Whitney Cummings agreed to talk to anyone in attendance: she wound up chatting with baby squirrels.

I just did an IG live with anyone who asked me to join and I was scared but then the person I picked had baby squirrels and I will now be doing these a LOT pic.twitter.com/MztHwbIkYZ

— Whitney Cummings (@WhitneyCummings) May 2, 2020

The official, verified account of Skittles has, on more than one occasion, stirred up drama in the comments section of Bowen Yang and Julio Torres’ Instagram Live chats.

Club Quarantine— a daily digital Queer dance party that happens every night via Zoom– allows virtual clubgoers to join in with their cams, or just watch from behind a black tile, eliciting both an exhibitionism and vouyerism harking back to the random recklessness of the bygone Chat Roulette era.

But while it seems haphazard, each call, chat and interaction is an expansion of community that chips away at our cultural fear of IRL intimacy and democratizes digital communities.

Club Quarantine is not just a fun party; it’s a way for young queer people all over the world to be exposed to a community they may never have been able to access, or even imagine, before.

As more white collar workers are beginning to wonder not when they’re going to return to the office, but why they would ever return to an office at all, major coastal cities are staring at an exodus of their creative class and a bit of their cultural capital.

This migration gives brands a mandate to expand their offerings to bigger, more diverse groups of consumers as they use live-streaming and digital tools to build new communities all over the country.

Take The Wing, a women’s co-working space founded in New York City with offices in chic urban hubs like San Francisco and London.

When forced to close, they quickly pivoted from Millennial-pink meeting rooms to Zooms, making the interconnectedness of their community and celebrity-speckled programming accessible online for people all over. 

Shift 2: Exasperation with asperation

The foundational cracks in the influencer veneer have been growing over the past few years, but the COVID crisis provides a magnifying glass that’s amplifying influencer’s social media shortcomings.

When the crisis hit, Influencers and celebrities were among the first to draw our ire for using their privilege to improve their situations: fleeing from (highly infectious) cities to (highly staffed) second homes, and broadcasting (off-tune) singalongs after just a few days of being confined to their sprawling estates.

The highly-filtered, everything-is-perfect image that is the hallmark of influencer and celebrity marketing has never been less appropriate than it is now.

In a global crisis, consumers are rejecting content that screams aspiration and are instead looking for ways to share in and mitigate our collective exasperation. So what’s to fill this anti-influencer void? More unpolished, even unhinged, content.

Sixty-four year old character actor Leslie Jordan has seen his following balloon from 80k to 4.2 million thanks to a stream of monologues showcasing the absurd mundanity of lockdown: ironing for fun, baton twirling for exercise, watching porn while eating cereal.

But we’re the stars, too. From live baking and hair-coloring tutorials, to yoga flows in cluttered bedrooms, to organized weekly Zoom sessions, we’re all content creators and each other’s Influencers, now more than ever.

“Coming to you live” from the physical and emotional messiness of quarantine is recalibrating our relationship with reality, causing us to eschew unreasonable expectations and embrace “doing the best we can do” as the new form of “living our best life.”

Heiniken’s recent spot montages the relatable pain points of our endless digital gatherings and nods to the fact that quarantine life isn’t great, but we’re all trying to make it through.

Shift 3: Optimism is self-care

Optimism was already growing as a countertrend to the vitriol on the internet, but today, it’s flourishing.

During the pandemic, against a backdrop of endless doomsday news, we’re clamoring for more optimism. The sarcasm and troll-like tone that was once the hallmark of the internet is being replaced by content that uplifts.

For a moment this week, “Duck Pool Party,” a stream of ducks playing in a pool, was the most viewed Reddit livestream. Even notoriously snarky brands like Wendy’s have shifted their Twitter strategy, at least temporarily, to encourage camaraderie through games, activities and shared stories.

Wholesome, positive –if not strange and mindless– content has become a balm to cure our anxiety, a form of self-care that fills a void and provides a sense of calm that sheet masks and sourdough cannot.

Shift 4: Fascinated with facts

In March, consumers were letting out a collective sigh of exhaustion as their inboxes filled with branded emails detailing how we were all “in this together.”

But against the background of a pandemic, these vague platitudes have a counter-effect, reminding us all just how much these companies haven’t been there for us in the past: what little cooperation we received from airlines and car companies before, and what little practical application they have in this stripped back version of reality.

Instead, we want to hear the straightforward truth.

Unlikely figures like Dr. Fauci and New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo have emerged as the leading men of the pandemic (and even more bizarrely, sex symbols), and Cuomo’s curt, distinctively Dad-toned Powerpoint slides have found a cult-following of their own.

Frito Lay’s COVID-spot “It’s About People” has won praise for saying what they were doing to help employees, instead of selling chips.

But the most trustworthy brand voice comes from a most unlikely player: Steak Umms.

The frozen meat company has emerged as a “voice of truth” thanks to their straight-forward, no-nonsense tweets that are at times, radical, at least for a corporate brand.

Their willingness to tweet bold opinions– and not mild platitudes–earned them double their pre-COVID audience, and the admiration of the internet.

When we emerge post-crisis, shell-shocked, knowing that catastrophe can hit again at any moment, we’ll still want straightforward talk from brands.

Brands need to learn this lesson quickly if they hope to pivot successfully in the ‘new normal.’

Megan Routh is a cultural anthropologist, writer and strategist at Open Mind Strategy whose expertise lies in translating cultural insights and trends into actionable strategies for Fortune 100 companies including: PepsiCo, Calvin Klein, JP Morgan Chase, Mondelez, Target and the United States Postal Service. With a decade of experience conducting research, moderating workshops and cultivating trend and cultural intelligence across countries in North America, South America, Europe and Asia, Megan has helped clients uncover emerging directions in culture, business and consumer behavior to develop strategies and innovate products, services, and experiences.

The post Chaotic communication: COVID-19 is rewriting our cultural rules of connection appeared first on ClickZ.

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“Bye, I’m going to go learn a new TikTok dance” was the near-constant refrain I heard from my college-aged sister, Rory, while I was visiting my parents’ house over the holidays a few months ago. She was a relatively early adopter of the now ubiquitous social media platform—and I was not. So, it took me a while to understand that when she’d spend hours upon hours in her childhood bedroom perfecting her rendition of the viral Renegade dance (set to Atlanta rapper K Camp’s song “Lottery”), she was actually practicing a self-care ritual. Wellness is carving out a presence on TikTok (currently the most downloaded app from the App Store) just as it’s found its place on other platforms in the past decade—and synchronized dances only scratch the surface.

TikTok’s 800 million active users have viewed its #wellness-tagged videos nearly 160 million times and its #health-tagged posts 4.3 billion times. While TikTok is still most popular among teenaged users, the number of adults flocking to the platform has multiplied by more than five times between October 2017 and March 2019—and it’s surely grown even more since then, if the trending #over30 hashtag is any indication. Among the content creators generating such buzz are doctors and nurses, trainers and ballerinas, dietitians and foodies, meditation experts and therapists. With the coronavirus pandemic continuing on, and #stayathome being the hashtag dominating our lives, there perhaps has never been a better time for these TikTok stars to use their platform to provide healthy value to the many lives they reach.

“Researchers are seeing that people moving together in synchrony reduces stress.” —Anita Blanchard, PhD, psychologist

What differentiates TikTok from other social mediums is its inherent community focus—something crucially missing in many of our lives as we shelter in place—because it allows people to practice wellness in synchronicity with others. Once something like a dance is shared on TikTok, it’s easily learned, practiced, and reposted by other users who bond over it. This is a departure from Instagram, where the mark of a successful post is very much reliant on the number of comments and likes it receives. But with TikTok, a winning video more so relies on how much people interact with the content IRL—either by emulating or building on it. “Researchers are seeing that people moving together in synchrony reduces stress,” says psychologist Anita Blanchard, PhD. “And I think the idea of being so isolated, but having the ability to move together and exercise in tandem creates both physical health and mental health.”

In other words, in a time when an estimated 13 percent of Americans are unemployed and still more have shifted to remote-working situations to stop the spread of COVID-19, TikTok has become a digital destination for communicating about various categories of your wellness routine—from fitness to food and mental health to skin care. And sure, a platform like Facebook can foster close-knit communities, but TikTok offers the opportunity to share your wellness practices and do them with others. Anybody who likes to dance can connect with someone who’s an ocean away by doing that same (often-complicated) dance, fostering a connection not dissimilar from they way mirror neurons fire up when we mimic one another. And while TikTok certainly is not an antidote for the sadness and uncertainty many of us are feeling right now, it does offer an influx of free wellness practices that simulate the togetherness we yearn for in a physically and socially distant world.

Fitness on TikTok: Fast, fun, and oh-so-accessible

TikTok users like Jalaiah Harmon, creator of the viral TikTok Renegade dance, undoubtedly deserve a special place in the platform’s Hall of Fame for inspiring countless others to master heart-rate spiking choreography, but there are so many other forms of fitness-forward content as well. Yoga, running, and ballet are just a few of the exercise modalities you’ll find.

Cassey Ho, founder of Blogilates, has garnered 1.2 million followers since she first started making Pilates-inspired TikTok workout videos in December 2019. “Every year, there’s a new platform, and you have to ask yourself if this one’s going to stick,” says Ho (who started Blogilates on YouTube in 2009). That’s because content needs to be created with the specific platform in mind, meaning a YouTube video can’t double as a TikTok video, and with all the social platforms available, a creator needs to be wise about where they focus their time and resources. For Ho, at least, the decision to hop on the TikTok train has paid off in spades.

“The beauty of TikTok is that you can keep trying things and people don’t unfollow you. Your content is always pushed to someone new and pushed to a new audience, so there’s always a chance for discovery,” Ho says. Indeed, TikTok’s algorithm constantly serves up content from unknown names, so TikTok users can expect to experience wellness serendipity and learn something new and helpful during each session.

“Since the start of quarantine, I have been actively referencing the #indoorworkout [tag]. It’s an easy and simple way to get quick circuits in throughout the day.” —Chrissy Goncalves, TikTok user

Chrissy Goncalves, a TikTok user with AskGenZ (a resource anyone can use to ask questions to members of that generation), says the open and broad algorithm is what led her to curate her own TikTok workout routine. “Since the start of quarantine, I have been actively referencing the #indoorworkout [tag]. It’s an easy and simple way to get quick circuits in throughout the day.”

It’s worth mentioning that since anyone with internet access and a smartphone can create content on TikTok, some videos actually share harmful or at least unverified information. Many pages, Ho’s included, peddle pieces of shame-driven advice about bloating, “slimming” meals, and exercises for “long legs,” for example.

Still, psychologist Chrysalis Wright, PhD, who specializes in social media behavior, believes that TikTok has the power to do more good than harm, so long as users approach their feeds with a healthy dose of scrutiny. “Having free, readily available access to fitness instructors and dietitians who are providing quick, bite-size tips on wellness can not only motivate viewers but can also make information easily available and easier to understand,” says Dr. Wright. “This, in turn, promotes and encourages wellness, and demonstrates how people can make small changes that lead to reaching to larger goals.”

Mental-health content on TikTok: Joy-sparking and honest, but not expert-vetted

“Laughter is the best medicine, so for me, TikTok has been an unintentional resource for wellness in that way,” says TikTok user Taylor Lott. “While so many other platforms have necessary yet bleak information on the current climate, TikTok offers humorous relief.” Certainly, other platforms—specifically Twitter—deal in comedy, but TikTok’s particular brand of humor is America’s Funniest Home Videos-meets-Vine (RIP). The laughs are mostly apolitical, always relatable, and rely on a fair amount of talking animals.

As silly as it may seem to say that watching a video of a hedgehog getting wrapped in a blanket counts as a “wellness practice,” Lott makes a fair point: Joy is a resource that’s more valuable than likes, followers, or comments. Laughter is hugely beneficial for stress relief, but it’s not the only mental-health perk people get from scrolling TikTok.

The #mentalhealth tag on the app has 434 million views, and it might just be one of the most pep-talk-laden destinations on the web. Take @taylorcassidyj’s most popular videos for evidence, which feature her running up to the camera and saying: “Stop. Don’t give up! You’re literally almost there. You’re almost there! Look, you’re almost there! It’s right over there! So stop. Get up, keep going!”

@taylorcassidyjdon’t give up!! You CAN do it

##selfcare##selflove##encouragement##dontgiveup##mentalhealth##blacktiktok##melanin♬ original sound – taylorcassidyj

https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

Beyond motivational words, Genuine vulnerability is also highly valued by TikTok users: As The Philadelphia Inquirer reported late last year, teenagers specifically have started to use the platform as a place for discourse about sensitive topics like sexuality, struggles with depression, and relationship abuse. “It’s exciting and shows that young people are willing to have conversations that people a few generations ago have not had,” Jessa Lingel, PhD, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “It’s kind of like, ‘How can we all get through this together? How can we share content to deal with this together?’”

What’s missing, however, is more direct-from-professional content that’s long been available on Instagram, where users can follow mental-health professionals. Hopefully in time, mental-health experts will sign on the way pros in the fitness, food, and beauty categories have.

Food and health on TikTok: Equal parts helpful and potentially harmful

“I joined TikTok about two months ago and started using it for a good laugh and mindless pleasure,” says Stephanie Grasso, RD, a clinical dietitian nutritionist with almost 55,000 TikTok followers. “I thought it was time to make my first TikTok after scrolling through and watching inaccurate nutrition information being spread.” And, to be sure, there’s a lot of bad intel swirling: While there are accredited dietitians on TikTok, like Grasso, serving up well-researched advice, there are seemingly just as many users with no credentials offering unscientific advice on subjects like bloating, weight management, and skinny-making “miracle” practices.

Luckily, a number of pros like Grasso are determined to drown out body-shaming rhetoric with nutrition advice designed to help their followers eat for energy, cognitive health, and athletic performance. “I use evidence-based research and my clinical experience to emphasize fundamental elements of nutrition to help keep healthy,” says Grasso, whose videos feature healthy recipes and nutritional myth-busters.

@stephgrassodietitianhttps://ift.tt/3bj0MS1 ##dietitian ##weightloss ##wellnesstips ##mealprep ##fyp ##healthtips♬ Heartless – Diplo & Julia Michaels feat. Morgan Wallen

https://www.tiktok.com/embed.js

Anecdotally speaking, people like Grasso seem to be accomplishing that mission. My sister and the other TikTok devotees I reached out to for this article tell me that the healthy recipe ideas, posts on intuitive eating, and myth-busting are three especially helpful takeaways from the app. Still, though, it’s difficult to avoid posts that try to make you feel bad about yourself and your choices. “Like any social media platform, viewers should try to emphasize the benefits of the app and minimize the potential negatives of the app,” says Dr. Wright. “Follow those who provide useful tips and suggestions and avoid those who engage in body-shaming others. Try to keep the vibe positive to fully reap the benefits of the app’s potential.”

Beauty on TikTok: A wild west of DIY hacks, dupes, reviews, and expert intel

TikTok has become home to a lot of DIY beauty-ritual ideas (think: hairspray made with avocado oil, sea salt, and essential oils)—but that’s not all. It also offers a wealth of money-saving tips (e.l.f. Cosmetics Poreless Putty Primer is a pretty great dupe for Tatcha’s Silk Canvas Primer); beauty hacks (you can totally mixyour lip balm with eyeshadow to make your lips and lids matchy-matchy); and has convinced me, personally, to buy products I was on the fence about (like the Revlon One-Step Hair Dryer and Volumizer Hot Air Brush).

Besides everyday humans sharing their beauty hacks on TikTok, though, makeup artists and dermatologists also get a ton of airtime. Dermatologist Joyce Park, MD, has more than 100,000 followers and uses her presence to share remedies for dry hands, causes of rosacea flare-ups, her own skin-care routine, and the most common conditions she treats as a derm.

And while TikTok offers so much valuable content across a number of categories, to get the very most from it, Dr. Blanchard says you’re going to want to get your friends involved, even if just virtually. “If you’re not quarantining alone, getting on TikTok together would be the best way to get the most out of what you see. Doing it with someone is going to give you the most psychological and physical bang for the buck,” she says. “If you can’t [create videos with someone who is physically with you], try to do it with someone on Zoom or FaceTime, so you feel like you’re doing it together.”

This applies to every single wellness ritual you see on TikTok: choreography, healthy baking, TikTok meditations, and more. This is social media after all, folks. We may not be in the same room as one another, but we can still dance together.

Now that you’re hooked on TikTok, here’s how to keep from furiously appstrurbating before bed. And, setting boundaries with Instagram is important, too.  

from Good Advice – Well+Good https://ift.tt/2XJqSd7 via IFTTT

#Wellness on TikTok is booming—and choreographed dances don’t even scratch the surface #Good Advice –

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The Science of Productivity

In today’s busy world we’ve become a people obsessed with “work hacks” and supposedly hidden secrets on how to be more productive.

Getting more done in less time helps us get ahead, and even gives us more availability to do the things we love outside of work. The problem we run into is that it is easy to get motivated, but hard to stay disciplined.

Most of us look at productivity in the wrong way: task management tools are shiny at first and then go unused. Being chained to your desk is as unhealthy as it is unproductive. Achievement isn’t about doing everything, it’s about doing the right things. Productivity is about saying no.

Focus and consistency are the bread-and-butter of being truly productive. Let’s take a look at the science behind how the brain works in the synthesis state, and what changes you can make for the better.

Productivity Explained in 3 Minutes

Click play to learn:

Why worrying about having “more willpower” is a fool’s game.

How world class experts stay productive… and what they do differently.

The reason why better energy management = a more productive you.

Big pitfalls that lead to busywork and procrastination.

Watch and enjoy.

Once you’ve done that, if you want to know more just scroll down: a dozen studies and far more explanation await.

Why Willpower Isn’t Enough

The first thing to acknowledge in the pursuit of getting more done is the mountain of evidence that suggests willpower alone will not be enough to stay productive.

According to research by Janet Polivy, our brain fears big projects and often fails to commit to long-term goals because we’re susceptible to “abandoning ship” at the first sign of distress.

Think of the last time you went on a failed diet.

You stocked your fridge with the healthiest foods and planned to exercise every day, until the first day you slipped up. After that, it was back to your old ways.

To make matters worse, research by Kenneth McGraw was able to show that the biggest wall to success was often just getting started. Additional research in this area suggests that we’re prone to procrastinating on large projects because we visualize the worst parts; the perfect way to delay getting started.

According to researcher John Bargh, your brain will attempt to simulate real productive work by avoiding big projects and focusing on small, mindless tasks to fill your time.

Big project due tomorrow? Better reorganize my movie collection!

Perhaps worst of all, numerous studies on the concept of ego-depletion have provided some evidence that suggests our willpower is a limited resource that can be used up in it’s entirety. The more you fight it, the more gas you burn. An empty tank leads to empty motivation.

With all of that stacked against us, what can we possibly do to be more productive?

In order to figure this out, one of our best bets is to observe the habits of consistently productive people.

The Habits of Productive People

If I were to ask to describe the practice regiments of world-class musicians, you’d probably envision a shut-in artist who plays all day long and then tucks in their instrument at night.

Amazingly though, research by Anders Ericsson that examined the practice sessions of elite violinists clearly showed that the best performers were not spending more time on the violin, but rather were being more productive during their practice sessions.

Better yet, the most elite players were getting more sleep on average than everyone else. How is that possible?

Subsequent research by Ericsson reveals the answer: the best players were engaging in more deliberate practice. You’ve heard the term, but beyond the hype, what is it all about?

It’s nothing more than spending time on the hardest tasks, and being better at managing your energy levels.

Think of it this way: If you were trying to get better at basketball, you’d be much better off practicing specific drills for two hours rather than shooting hoops all day long.

Since deliberate practice requires you to spend more brainpower than busy work, how can you implement it without draining your willpower?

The first answer is an inconvenient truth: the best way to overcome your fear of spending a lot of energy on a big project is to simply get started.

The Zeigarnik Effect is a construct that psychologists have observed in numerous studies on suspense. One such study gave participants brain-buster puzzles to complete, but not enough time to complete them. The surprising thing was, even when participants were asked to stop, over 90% of them went on to complete the puzzles anyway.

According to the lead researcher:

It seems to be human nature to finish what we start and, if it is not finished, we experience dissonance.

It’s the same thing that happens when we become engaged in a story in a book, movie or TV show: we want to see how it ends.

You can use this knowledge to your advantage by just getting started on that next big project; in the most basic sense, don’t focus your motivation on doing Activity X. Instead, focus on making Activity X easier to do.

Start the night before. Is your to-do list already written up? Is your place of work ready for you to get started? Break down barriers of friction before relying on willpower.

Working Like an Expert

A multitude of research has shown us that discipline is best maintained through habits, not through willpower.

According to Tony Schwartz, CEO of The Energy Project, most people hold their productivity back by not rigidly scheduling work & rest breaks throughout the day.

Since most of us are worried about willpower, we don’t push ourselves to maximum output: instead of “giving our all” for brief sessions, we distribute our effort throughout the day, leading us back to busywork to fill our time.

What should we do instead?

Schwartz often cites a research study conducted by the Federal Aviation Administration that revealed how short breaks between longer working sessions resulted in a 16% improvement in awareness & focus.

Research from Peretz Lavie on ultradian rhythms matches up with these findings: longer productive sessions (of 90 minutes) followed by short breaks (of no more than 15-20 minutes) sync more closely with our natural energy cycles and allow us to maintain a better focus and higher energy level throughout the day.

Both of these studies on energy management match up with the practice schedules of the violinists: the most common regimen for the cream of the crop players was a 90-minute block of intense practice followed by a 15-minute break.

The moral of the story is that it’s hard to be productive while trying to maintain high energy levels through your entire day.

It’s much easier to work intensely when you know that a break is just around the corner, not at the end of the day. Instead of trying to conserve energy for hours, break big projects down into smaller chunks and plan a recovery period right after.

For projects done on your own time, try scheduling blocks of 90-minute work sessions with a planned cool down time of 15 minutes directly afterwards. When you know a break is on the horizon, you won’t try to pace yourself with your work, and will be more inclined to dive into the difficult stuff.

While great for tackling the toughest parts of large projects, this technique doesn’t really address many problems related to discipline, an important part of staying productive for more than just a day or two.

The Art of Staying Disciplined

One segment of the population known for struggling with discipline are those who are addicted to hard drugs.

Given their disposition for being unable to commit to many things, you might be surprised to find that during an experiment testing the ability of drug addicts to write & submit a 5 paragraph essay on time, those who wrote down when & where they would complete the essay were far more likely to turn it in.

These findings have some interesting correlation with those related to discipline in other people: in a study examining the ability of average people to stick with a strict dieting plan, researchers found that those participants who rigorously monitored what they were eating were able to maintain far higher levels of self-control when it came to maintaining their diet.

Last but not least, Dan Ariely and colleagues conducted a study involving college students and found that students who imposed strict deadlines on themselves for assignments performed far better (and more consistently) than those who didn’t.

These findings were especially interesting because Ariely noted that students who gave themselves too generous of a deadline often suffered from the same problems as students who set zero deadlines: when you allot yourself too much time to complete a task, you can end up creating a mountain out of a molehill.

Since we now know that tracking our progress is a key component of productivity, how can we implement this practice into our daily routine?

One method is to use an Accountability Chart to track what work you’ve completed during your 90-minute productive sessions, similar to how the dieters tracked their food consumption.

To easily implement one, simply create two-columns on a piece of paper, Google Docs spreadsheet, or even a whiteboard.

Column 1 will list the time-span of one of your productivity sessions.

Column 2 will list what tasks you’ve accomplished in that limited time-span.

Don’t include any columns for your 15-minute breaks, as those times are for your own sake and means to replenish your willpower.

This works well for 2 specific reasons:

Dr. Kentaro Fujita argues that tracking your progress in this way is helpful because you’ll be exposed to the work you’ve actually accomplished, and not the (inaccurate) assumption of work you might construe in your head.

Forcing yourself to write down the fact that you spent 2 hours on YouTube isn’t about shaming, it’s about awareness; you’ll be less likely to do it again.

Progress tracking is also a known strategy for stopping yourself from engaging in robotic behavior (also known as ‘busywork’), a habit that researcher John Bargh describes as the #1 enemy of goal striving.

Productivity and Multitasking Don’t Mix

With a work schedule, an energy management strategy and a task-tracking system in place, the last challenge we have to face is that of multitasking.

According to a 1999 study, we have a tendency to view multitasking as effective, even when it isn’t

However, researcher Zhen Wang was able to show that on average, multitaskers are actually less likely to be productive, yet they feel more emotionally satisfied with their work—creating an illusion of productivity.

Worse yet, Stanford researcher Clifford Nass examined the work patterns of multitaskers and analyzed their ability to:

Filter information

Switch between tasks

Maintain a high working memory

He found that they were terrible at all three. According to Nass:

We were absolutely shocked. We all lost our bets. It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking.

When working on the computer, the best thing you can do is turn on Airplane Mode; no need for temptation when you can’t even access the web. If you’re unable, help yourself with tools like and StayFocusd to block distracting sites.

The next best strategy is to create an evening planning ritual where you select a few priority tasks to accomplish the next day.

The reason this method works far better than planning your daily tasks in the morning is because research from the Kellogg School has shown that we miscalculate the amount of focus we’ll be able to maintain in the future. We strongly believe that we’ll be able to quickly plan our day the next morning, but when tomorrow rolls we stumble off track.

You can create an evening planning ritual with a simple pen & paper or use an online tool like TeuxDeux each night. List only priority tasks (the “big 5”) for the day.

Instead of listing, “Work on research project,” as a daily goal, try something like, “Finish introduction,” or, “Find additional sources,” as a task you can actually complete.

Productivity Instant Replay

Too long, didn’t read:

Willpower alone is not enough: Your productivity shouldn’t be reliant on your sheer force of will alone. Mental toughness will go a long way, but in order to stay disciplined you’re better off relying on systems.

Give yourself the ability to go “all-in”: Working harder on the stuff that matters is going to drain you mentally & physically. Don’t be afraid of giving yourself multiple breaks throughout the day. It’s better to “chunk” productivity sessions into 90 minute periods (in order to keep yourself sharp and to alleviate the stress of pacing your energy throughout the entire day.

If it’s not worth measuring, it’s not worth doing: Tracking has been proven to be the best way to stay diligent about your progress. Create an accountability chart to list what productive things you’ve gotten done throughout the day. You’ll see how much you’re really accomplishing.

Multitasking is your enemy: Treat it as such. Block out unwanted distractions and as Ron Swanson would say, “Never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing.” Plan your day the night before so you won’t get consumed with the wonderful distractions of the internet when you start your day.

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One Wood Burning Tip and Two Project Ideas to Try

The following post One Wood Burning Tip and Two Project Ideas to Try is available on https://www.woodburninghq.com/

We have insisted in many of our guides to Pyrography that woodburning is an art limited only to your creativity. Even with that said, there are times when you just can’t think of new ideas, no matter how hard you try. So in this guide, we will share one important tip and let you in on two projects to try.

Perhaps the biggest mistake many beginners make is to start burning wood before prepping. According to @Foxchapelpublisging on Fox Chapel Publishing, this is usually not a good way to get started.

PREP BEFORE YOU BURN

We know you’re excited to get started, but a bit of prep work before you fire up the burner will go a long way. Sand the wood with progressively finer grits of sandpaper up to 400-grit. Tape the top of the pattern securely to the blank, slip graphite paper under the pattern, and use a colored pen to trace the pattern onto the blank.

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Take time to prepare your wood for the project. Don’t be in a rush, if anything. Sand the wood as best as you can, and then you can proceed to burning with fire thereafter.

The first project idea is learning how to draw a crow bird as taught by Brenda Wilkie on their site, Pyrography Made Easy.

THE CROW BIRD PYROGRAPHY TUTORIAL Wood Burning

In this tutorial I’m going to explain how to create the Crow pyrography artwork.  The crow is the fifth installment of my Backyard Birds tutorial series.  There are a lot of tall fir trees in my neighborhood and one year a pair of crows nested in one of the trees.   The crows became a common sight in my backyard as they feasted on the assorted bird food found there.  Todd managed to get quite a few different photos of the birds, but it was this image of the crow cawing that caught my eye.

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This is an interesting tutorial by the way. And given the fact that it is beginner friendly, you can follow along easily and complete the entire training in the shortest time there is.

The next idea is combing what you know about Pyrography to color an existing woodburning project, as instructed by Bede on Felt Magnet.

How to Color a Wood Burning Project

Wood burning and coloring make a perfect match. The simplicity of wood burning, also known as pyrography, lends itself to a variety of techniques and every level of skill. Coloring, on the other hand, is a great way to enhance the natural tones of wood. And who doesn’t enjoy coloring? For some, it is a mindless stress reliever, while for others, it is an exercise of autonomy: “I’ll choose whatever color I like!” Moreover, research indicates that coloring helps the brain to disconnect from anxious thoughts and focus on the moment. While it is not necessary to color a wood burning project, putting the two techniques together often make for magical results.

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You will love this guide because it is detailed, and because it teaches you to do everything step by step so that you are not lost on the way.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, these project ideas should help you come up with even more ideas to try in the future. Whether you are a seasonal wood burner or a beginner to Pyrography, the tips and ideas we have shared above should help you a big deal.