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I take a break from caffeine for a week every two months. I do the same with alcohol every month. It helps me stay objective about the amount I'm consuming. It helped me cut way back from pandemic-levels of coffee especially. Hoo, boy, I was one jittery, confined ball of anxiety and despair.
Pro tip: don't schedule both during the same week.
Me and my wife have started doing Dry January. There was a study about how it led to drinking less year over year. I like it!
I am, in a non-self deluded (I hope) way, a "social drinker". I don't keep any alcohol at home. I only drink around friends, and I keep company that does more things than just go to bars. This makes alcohol actually seem like more of an upbeat treat than something habitually consumed.
Having a place for things. Never having to look for "x". Keys, wallet, which type of utensil goes in which slot in the silverware holder. I have saved so much time, avoided problems and given myself mental breaks by simply putting things where they're needed and being consistent.
This was something I realised too (or similar). Having stuff also requires having space. If you don’t have space then you really shouldn’t have stuff.
When everything has its place, organisation, cleanliness and general liveability start to take care of themselves. And probably overconsumption and hoarding too.
It’s funny, because “insufficient space” or the “disregard to space” seem to be common themes for me in terms of how modern things are being done poorly.
If you don’t have space then you really shouldn’t have stuff.
You shut your pretty whore mouth!!!
nervously glances at my 6 tubs of amiibo and 4 tubs of G-Scale model trains in an apartment to small to sneeze in
Oh I’ve been there. I am there. I was not virtue signalling. It was a cry for help!
So much of modern life is about about inventory management.
I like old videos of tribespeople in tropical places. There's always a guy just lying down in the jungle, doing nothing, with no stuff.
Never use your phone in bed.
CBT (Cognitive behavior therapy). Get your your mind to associate bed with sleep, not with phone stimulation.
Force yourself to sneeze and cough inside your elbow all the time. Even when you're alone. Then it becomes a reflex and you'll protect those around you from infection a lot better.
Drink a glass of water upon waking up.
Twenty years ago someone mentioned this to me, how the body tends to be dehydrated upon waking and that’s part of why waking up sucks.
Since then I’ve been drinking a glass of water almost immediately after waking up.
+1 to this and taking it up a notch: as I grow older have to pee once at night and I get that glass of water in before returning to sleep.
Putting stuff in a calendar. Now that I've started doing it, I'm not sure how people live without it. I have too much stuff going on to remember exactly when things are happening and some of them are scheduled weeks or months in advance. Everything has to go in the calendar app. For things that are further out, I set reminders one week and one day before. Other than that, I also check at the start of every week, and ofc I check whenever I need to schedule something.
This and the to-do list. My wife and I are totally committed to these. It really does make life a little bit easier.
Kinda a boring one but gym. Started a couple of years ago once a week and had to drag myself there but after a month or two of that something flipped and now I go almost every day. It's pretty fun and it's great to notice the change in myself over the last couple of years. Now just need to do something about diet and sleep.
Flossing I guess.
It reduces the risk of heart disease! Very important.
Remember, you are most likely to die from heart disease.
Really? How the heck does that work out?
The rubbish that gets into your teeth / gums can then get into your blood stream. From there it can travel to your heart and cause issues.
Well that's good to know. Thanks!
You’ve already got a better answer, but let me encourage you to remember your circulation whenever you think of your dental health to help motivate you to build and maintain those good habits.
Flossing seems mundane, but really it’s helping you with the most important risk factors for the things that are most likely to kill us.
Journaling.
It's extremely powerful from mental health to actual planning tasks and keeping track of things but weirdly enough it can be difficult to get into.
My best advice would be to make it as easy and as low stakes as possible at the beginning. Just open file/journal and write anything every day, even if it's one word. Don't worry about anything else. Then you can add and evolve this habbit to whatever feels useful to you.
When I feel bad, I clean. If I'm going to feel like crap anyway, might as well get some use out of it.
Listening to audiobooks!
I always listen to podcasts and audiobooks while I am driving to office :D
I love my local library because they’re keeping me sane on my work commute! I looove audiobooks and it’s so nice to be able to try so many and not have to worry about if I will like them because it’s all free!!!!
Libby and your library card.
Walking places instead of driving.
Yes! It gets addictive too. You start to like being able to just walk to everything you need. So independent and flexible and relaxing!
Paying attention to what you're doing. Sounds simple but so many people don't do it. They just keep doing the same thing and act surprised when it never works. If you pay attention to what you do and the outcome of your actions, you can improve everything you do and become very efficient.
Meditating
Drinking a couple glasses of water immediately when I wake up.
Wakes me up, gets rid of the tired dont-wanna-open eyes.
Probably ensures you don't go back to sleep too, at least not for long.
I do squats when I craft video game items. One squat per item. Thousands of squats at this point but still playing just as much so win win in my book. My ass is getting bigger!
Factorio players Start sweating.
Before I sit down on the toilet, I take a piece of toilet paper en wipe the brim. Not that it makes that much of a difference of how clean the brim is. But since doing that I ALWAYS notice if the roll's nearly empty. It's just the heads up you need to check stock and fix a new one before it's too late.
I have a hat.
The hat goes on when I leave the house or leave the office. Putting the hat on triggers me to stop for one second and actually think "Do I have everything I should have?" If I make it out of the house without the hat, I spend a proper minute or two double checking that I have everything because if I can forget the hat, I could forget anything.
It's yer thinkin' cap!
Each day, I have a reminder shoot off on all my devices to think of three things for which I'm grateful. Today's list:
-1. I get to wfh today (we're hybrid)
-2. I don't look like Andrew Tate (pic of him in last post where I commented; what a toad)
-3. The vase didn't shatter when a kitty knocked it off the table eating flowers
(Lemmy wanted to be stupid about how it formatted my numbered list, that's why the hyphens to stop it from mangling the list.)
I stopped using antiseptic mouthwash, even zero-alcohol versions, because the microbes in your mouth produce nitric-oxide and killing them off might be linked to high blood pressure.
petting a cat or a dog when you start to get agitated during a phone call
learn from the mistakes of others
It was not easy to train, nor to keep, but meditation upon waking is vital to me now. I find whatever my biggest struggles are, money, relationships, work stress, family… those anxiety demons are waiting to pounce upon waking. If not, my phone will deliver fresh demons. So I claim my mind as my own before allowing any other influences to set a tone for the day. Start with a 10 minute guided practice from a voice you trust easily. Go from there.
Get in the habit of getting into habits. My high school chemistry teacher turned me onto this. Make a point of doing something every day for a while and soon it will become hard NOT to do it.
When walking by / through vehicles in a parking lot with things in my hands, I will make the conscious effort to pull my arms close to my body and prevent them swaying or moving with my normal walk. As well as moving items from one hand to the other if the car is on the side that was holding them. Nobody likes scratches and dings!
Flossing every day. Never had issues with my gums ever since.
Taking a full breath of air before chugging liquids. I accidentally exhaled before choking on some water once, body naturally tried to pull in air and got more water. Very much felt like drowning.
I now do 30-45 strength training at home 3 times a week, and 2 short 15m sessions of HIIT. I spread it throughout the day as an addition to my lifestyle (between meetings, when showering the kiddo, etc) with a tiny investment in equipment and no real impact on leisure time.
It's part of a change to deal with a very unexpected type 2 diabetes diagnosis and it's had an outsized impact on my health for the effort.
Coupled with weight loss - Blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate and blood sugar have all dropped significantly within 3 months. Would recommend, exercise for health doesn't mean grueling classes, stupid long workouts, or 20 hours of cardio a week. Downside, an utterly ridiculous amount of misinformation online.
