Oh its easy. I've already quit 10 times. I'm actually thinking of quitting again next week :)
Actually the only time I managed to quit smoking for more than a few weeks when I was away from my friends/girlfriend for a five months and had no one smoking around me all day. It's easy for me to quit, it takes me a -pretty painless- couple of days. But after a while I relapse.
Program yourself to hate smoking. Continue to smoke but try to be conscious of it. Feel the smoke while you inhale, try to think about what's happening to your gum, teeth, throat, lungs, hands etc. look at yourself in the mirror and notice the negative effects of smoking. If you're in a city that bans smoking indoors then feel sorry for yourself everytime you go out to have a ciggeratte, because this habit is controlling you and making you do things you won't necessarily do. Start thinking about how the not smokers have a better life and how they're better for not letting this happen to them. Eventually if you keep thinking like that, just negative things about smoking, you'll start hating it and naturally cutting down until you find the right moment to go cold turkey and then just do it.
Stopped playing video games and stopped regularly watching TV or TV shows (though I still enjoy movies and TV shows, I don't make it part of my schedule). Biggest waste of time during my teenage years.
I did the same thing, and it is funny cause now that I only drink sugar-free coffee I actually enjoy it much more!
And I'm also able to tell difference between good coffee and bad coffee cause there is no sugar in the way hiding coffee's taste.
I once complained at the office that we were out of sugar at the coffee corner, after same asking around, I found out that I was the only one in the office drinking coffee with sugar. That meant I alone consumed the entire box (1500 portions of 5g) of sugar... A collaege gave me the best advice ever: "It's all between your ears, stop with sugar and within a week you'll no longer mis it". He was right.
Its winter now in India. Right now I'm doing a sleep at 11 - 11:30 and wake up 5:30 to 6 am routine. Then code for an hour or so. And then go for the walk and be back by 8.30 am. If I am not able to do a walk I do some calisthenics for 15 mins.
The weekends are more liberal. Things are a bit late but the only point is to not to miss the routine.
Prior to doing this, did you walk 10K every day? Curious about the diff between 10K run vs 10K walk. Personally, weightlifting 3x a week and roughly 10K walking every day does the same thing as running did.
I would love to do this but 10k/day is a lot. I tried it for one week and I was extremely exhausted. My productivity also dropped as I am very tired. What time of the day do you run?
Not the OP but that is not really how you start running 10K/day. You gradually build up endurance starting from a mile a day or so, till your lungs can deal with that. I run 5 miles on the days I don't weight lift. It is not exhausting or something. I do this in the morning and then go do my work stuff.
I'm not a beginner in running. Been running for more than two years but I find it hard to run 10k/day unless I don't have a job and don't go to work. I do the same I run on MWF and lift TThSat and that routine is ok for me. But running everyday is different.
Every human is different, but yes I believe that's too much. If he had said, "I exercise 5 days a week, take 1 week off every 3 months and 2 consecutive weeks off per year." Then that is different. But he said he runs a 5k EVERY SINGLE DAY, and that is far too much abuse for a human body. The most insidious symptom of overtraining syndrome is a compulsive need to exercise.
If this individual is overtrained, his body will find a way to stop him. He will become ill from immune suppression or injured from the constant stress that never fully heals, or too depressed to exercise at all.
Body builders have a saying something like, "Muscles are made in the bedroom and the kitchen."
I started running and waking up earlier. They looked so big to begin with but they were very very easy to adopt. Now i am trying to finally quit smoking once and for all.
Picking up the habit of working regularly on side-projects.
I am lucky enough to have a couple of friends interested in working on the same project as myself. The habit of all of us getting together for a couple of hours during the weekend has tremendously advanced the project.
It helps to work with friends or people in general, because it rarely happens that none of us are in the mood for working. And when we are, we pull the other ones in.
For about a year before starting this, I would only ever so often sit down to advance the project, but after starting this 1-2 times per week get-together with them, the project has improved (complete code refactoring + 2 versions out on the App Store), in about 3 months.
As well, myself, I have improved as a programmer and have gotten a rekindled interest in programming. I think my friends can agree that it has affected them similarly.
That's really cool. When I've been trying to work with someone else on side projects, someone always wanted to quit. It's really hard to find people who will do that regularly.
I can understand. Maybe it's more important to find a project that motivates everybody. I usually want to quit projects that don't appeal to me very much as well.
I stopped using shampoo and conditioner. It's the best fashion advice I've ever had and it's funny that it came from a hn article. Better looking hair, better protection against cold, no more dandruff, much smaller dry scalp patches and so on. Thanks HN!
Yes. Sodium bicarbonate. Make sure it doesn't have any flour in it.
Buy a tub of sodium bicarb and put it in an old shampoo bottle. Add water and mix - aiming for shampoo like viscosity.
Depends how much hair you have, your activity levels and where you live but start with using it once every couple days. You may end up at once / week, but depends on the above factors.
I just spend more time rubbing my scalp with my fingertips to get rid of dead skin cells or what have you. My non-scientific opinion is that that is what is important to keep your hair clean and shampoo mostly helps to lubricate your fingers and dry out natural oils.
No, shampoos are detergents, which is a chemist's way of saying they dissolve oils and therefore the other molecules and stuff that are trapped in the oils (like foodstuffs on a dirty plate). In the case of hair, that other stuff will include pollution from the atmosphere, salt from sweat, skin cells, bacteria, bacterial metabolic products (some of which cause odor), etc. Shampoos allow that stuff to be chemically freed and washed away.
The equivalent would be not using dishwashing liquid for your plates after a greasy meal. Hot water and friction can do a lot, but it is an uphill battle. In the case of hair, your method might just be "good enough", though. But I'm sure your hair won't get the "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific" response.
Same here. I used to have really greasy hair and needed to wash it pretty much everyday. I read about this so gave it a try. After a few weeks the grease went away. Note that I still wash my hair, so it doesn't smell, but I just use water.
Fasting (< 500cal) two or three times a week is rapidly decreasing my volume, and bringing increased mental clarity and alertness. It's a good rhythm to get into, has a pretty dramatic (positive) effect on how I feel, and it's a nice way to atone for yesterday...
There was a great episode of Horizon titled Eat, Fast And Live Longer which tackled the benefits of fasting. Even a very reasonable fasting routine seemed to have a non-trivial positive effect on the show's host. It was convincing enough that I gave it a shot, and though I haven't been able to stick with it (or an exercise routine, for that matter), I felt significantly better in the ~week following even a one day fast.
One of the things suggested by a researcher in the episode, is to make your "cheat day" the day following a fast. Tell yourself that you can eat anything you want, because (and this was certainly my experience) even if you intend to binge heavily, you most likely will not. You will, however, still feel incredibly satisfied after devouring that bag of chips, or splurging on the cheesecake after dinner. I can't remember the exact number, but the researcher mentioned that during this routine, the subjects would only eat around 10% more than their recommended daily caloric intake.
Yeah, that show [1] suggests that there are number of positive effects to limiting calories and protein intake, such as reduced risk of cancer, heart disease, cognitive disorders, and an increase in (neuronal) cell-repair and longevity.
Something that I have noticed is an increase in self-control. Previously my relationship to food had been rather habitual and sometimes even addictive. I've found that fasting has made it a lot easier to control what I eat on the other days...
Travelling on a kayak (Passau-Bratislava in 2012 and Krakow-Gdansk in 2013). Both the memories and the planning for the future trips (Iceland 2014!) give me something to hold on to during the dark moments. Previously I used to travel by bike, but I had stopped that for 3 years before picking up kayaking.
(2.) Quantified self: Targeting productive and unproductive time with RescueTime, and committing to explicit targets with Beeminder.
(3.) Less but better. Less input but better input. Less output but better output. Afford the luxury of being slow and having time for introspection and inspiration.
Maybe you're referring to something like the 80-20 rule, "Pareto principle"? More productivity by abstaining from perfectionism?
I just find it much more satisfying to produce small amounts of (what I consider to be) good output rather than large amounts of mediocre output. This isn't appreciated in all contexts, which is why I've called it a luxury.
In some sense, abstaining from perfectionism is the same as producing mediocre output.
I accept the fact that won't ever be mentally at 100% all the time, so I fill my day with many side-projects and can rotate whenever I'm exhausted with one task.
The output quality of each task might not be as high as when I committed myself exclusively to one thing, but overall I learn more and achieve more.
Reading. I never used to open a book for more than 20 minutes but once I started reading books I actually enjoyed (Gladwell, Freakenomics, other books related to business, personal growth, human behavior etc) I realized what an amazing habit it is. You learn a lot, work your brain, give the eyes a break from a screen and you can take a good book/kindle anywhere. No power needed. Start reading books.
Outliers, definitely the freakenomics books, I enjoyed Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Lean Startup, Power of Habit, Defining Decade (if your in your 20's, fantastic book), The Happiness Advantage, Great by Choice from Jim collins...
Thanks! From that list, I've read Outlier, The Lean Startup, and Power of Habit. Currently reading A Short History Of Nearly Everything, and I plan on following that with Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. After that, I will probably jump on Defining Decade.
I didn't like reading books as well, Even now its seems like work, that something I have to actively do.
Then I started audio books few years back, I read (heard) more than 10 books that year alone, Now I'm just a consumer listening not actively reading. I enjoy books lot more.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] threadActually the only time I managed to quit smoking for more than a few weeks when I was away from my friends/girlfriend for a five months and had no one smoking around me all day. It's easy for me to quit, it takes me a -pretty painless- couple of days. But after a while I relapse.
Hope that helps, it worked for me.
Actually, I'd be super interested to see the evolution of your writing style. Do you have a blog?
I used to waste so much time watching reruns and trash TV just because it was there when I turned the TV on.
The weekends are more liberal. Things are a bit late but the only point is to not to miss the routine.
The productivity gains are in the 2-3x range.
10 hours sleep is a bit excessive for me though :)
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/overtraining/a/aa062499a....
If this individual is overtrained, his body will find a way to stop him. He will become ill from immune suppression or injured from the constant stress that never fully heals, or too depressed to exercise at all.
Body builders have a saying something like, "Muscles are made in the bedroom and the kitchen."
r/NoFap
1. Stopped drinking. 2. Started running three miles every morning, crack of dawn. 3. Stopped watching TV. 4. Cut out almost all junk/fast food.
The change in my productivity and general sense of well-being has been profound.
I am lucky enough to have a couple of friends interested in working on the same project as myself. The habit of all of us getting together for a couple of hours during the weekend has tremendously advanced the project.
It helps to work with friends or people in general, because it rarely happens that none of us are in the mood for working. And when we are, we pull the other ones in.
For about a year before starting this, I would only ever so often sit down to advance the project, but after starting this 1-2 times per week get-together with them, the project has improved (complete code refactoring + 2 versions out on the App Store), in about 3 months.
As well, myself, I have improved as a programmer and have gotten a rekindled interest in programming. I think my friends can agree that it has affected them similarly.
After some weeks, your hair gets used to having no shampoo.
I'm doing it since 2 months and all is fine.
Buy a tub of sodium bicarb and put it in an old shampoo bottle. Add water and mix - aiming for shampoo like viscosity.
Depends how much hair you have, your activity levels and where you live but start with using it once every couple days. You may end up at once / week, but depends on the above factors.
Use it like shampoo, but more vigorously.
The equivalent would be not using dishwashing liquid for your plates after a greasy meal. Hot water and friction can do a lot, but it is an uphill battle. In the case of hair, your method might just be "good enough", though. But I'm sure your hair won't get the "Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific" response.
One of the things suggested by a researcher in the episode, is to make your "cheat day" the day following a fast. Tell yourself that you can eat anything you want, because (and this was certainly my experience) even if you intend to binge heavily, you most likely will not. You will, however, still feel incredibly satisfied after devouring that bag of chips, or splurging on the cheesecake after dinner. I can't remember the exact number, but the researcher mentioned that during this routine, the subjects would only eat around 10% more than their recommended daily caloric intake.
Something that I have noticed is an increase in self-control. Previously my relationship to food had been rather habitual and sometimes even addictive. I've found that fasting has made it a lot easier to control what I eat on the other days...
[1] http://vimeo.com/54089463
Closely linked: learned to cook for myself and making an effort to cook something I've never tried once a week.
(2.) Quantified self: Targeting productive and unproductive time with RescueTime, and committing to explicit targets with Beeminder.
(3.) Less but better. Less input but better input. Less output but better output. Afford the luxury of being slow and having time for introspection and inspiration.
(4.) When you can't sleep, don't try to.
- RescueTime: Productive and unproductive time, or specific software/website categories, automatically logged by the computer;
- Draft: Words written every day (just started, but looks promising);
Also successful: binary variables (1 or 0 every day, either done or not done).
I just find it much more satisfying to produce small amounts of (what I consider to be) good output rather than large amounts of mediocre output. This isn't appreciated in all contexts, which is why I've called it a luxury.
I accept the fact that won't ever be mentally at 100% all the time, so I fill my day with many side-projects and can rotate whenever I'm exhausted with one task.
The output quality of each task might not be as high as when I committed myself exclusively to one thing, but overall I learn more and achieve more.
Then I started audio books few years back, I read (heard) more than 10 books that year alone, Now I'm just a consumer listening not actively reading. I enjoy books lot more.