The human condition is perfectly aligned to survive. Our instincts, our brains, our physical bodies are all designed to maximize our chance at surviving a harsh, and volatile environment.
The problem is that most of us do not live in a harsh and volatile environment, and even when we do we usually have shelter, he at and cooking sources and bottled water.
Our brains are wired for maximum efficiency. Essentially to do as little as possible to get the job done. Our bodies are even built this way as well. We may not be the fastest or strongest creatures on the planet, but put us an a long distance endurance contest and we will win every time. We are also very good at using our brains and communication skills to coordinate our approach. All in all we are a marvel of the natural world and we are also the most lazy creatures at the same time. We will do anything to figure out how to reduce our future workload.
The thing is, that when we trick ourselves into going into survival mode that is when we find out just how smart we really are. We will really start figure out how to distribute the strain, increase efficiency and manage any burdens with expert precision. So how do we get ourselves to engage in this manner? This is the hard part.
I have come to the conclusion that we need habits, and preferably habits that increase in expectation and demand upon us. We wake up each day forced to reconcile with an expanded, increased workload. If you are able to overcome the lazy part of your mind then overtime your body will recognize that it is not getting out of the work and be forced to pour energy an thought into efficiently getting the job done.
The more we realize how our mind and body work, the more healthy we will become. Two good examples, one that I am doing and one that I am going to try.
First example is running. I am forcing myself to deal with an expanded running workload. I have gone from roughly 14 miles per week to well over 30. This week I plan to do even more. Under this intense workload, my body and mind are working overtime to deal with the pressure. This morning, half way into my 6 mile run, something clicked and I started working into a smoother and easier running style. Suddenly 6 miles felt easy. For the first time, a long distance run was conceivable and I even averaged less then 10 minutes per mile. You see under intense pressure, my human self had no choice and I was able to figure out the complex problem. I now understand the technique that I had been researching. I felt it in action today.
Second is diet. I am starting to realize that food, and quickly consumable food is to easy to obtain. My lazy self will grab that handful of peanut M&M’s without thinking about it. However, thinking about making a salad and I might as well be asking myself to design a suspension bridge. I am working through some mind tricks I might be able to use to hack this behavior.
What if I limited the amount of money I could spend a week on myself for food? What if I had a plan where I could only eat $40 worth of food in a week. Then I really stuck to that and would not allow myself any alternative. That would put some intense pressure on me. Very quickly, I would have to figure out the most nutrition packed foods and the lowest cost. Definitely would be eating a lot of cheap bulk whole foods! Another thought – what if I determined the exact amount of calories that I could consume in 1 week, then bought the whole foods ahead of time to equate to that amount. That would be intense, I would really have to get creative with my meal planning.
Not sure I will do either of those – but the concept is that I need to force my mind and body into a mode that it has to react, and start to engineer efficiency. Too much ability to be lazy, or over consume on easy foods is a major problem for me. I need a lean, mean machine that is being fooled into thinking it is in survival mode.
I think the concept I am referring to here works on just about anything, you need to figure out a way to force yourself to deal with an onslaught of a demand that you have to react to to fulfill. Only by doing that does the mind and body start to harmonize and gain efficiency. We used to get that by waking up everyday. In order to survive we had to be like this, but now with a Starbucks down the street, Dominoes 24 Hour delivery and Amazon Prime the worst thing that can happen to me is well….getting lazy and dying prematurely from a preventable disease.
Guy Reams (296)
365 Member
