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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   912 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for September 4, 2024

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Anybody got any idea on how to improve executive function? I'll take even the most esoteric advice....

In general the consensus view is that you can't meaningfully do that, outside of chemical intervention.

The primary advice is not to try to improve executive function itself but reduce your reliance on it.

Engineer an environment where you depend on outside execute function, turn monotonous and boring activities into more fun one by using things like audio entertainment and rewards, create solid routines that you can maintain without using executive function for every individual task, etc.

Off the top of my head:

  • ADHD medication (there are 5 main ones but most countries only legally allow atomoxetine and methylphenidate)
  • antidepressants
  • sleep
  • exercise
  • social factors (working with or for someone else)
  • nutrition (excess carbs and lack of protein are common problems)
  • sleep
  • exercise
  • nutrition (excess carbs and lack of protein are common problems)

This is all you need.

My broken record, all-purpose advice for everyone everywhere all the time is to pick up endurance sports, take training somewhat seriously, and compete somewhat regularly. The ability to hold a precise, difficult pace during for a 6x800 meter set of repeats translates surprisingly well to other parts of life. If you can decide to push through the immense cardiovascular suffering of an all-out 5K, you can make the decision to clean up your room. In the event that running isn't feasible, cycling and swimming are great options.

I used to do endurance running/skiing a lot. Doesn't transfer to problems with work discipline or something at all. (I competed at 5K and 21K)

Yeah this has also been my experience. I don't think discipline or willpower have ever been helpful frameworks for me (as opposed to, e.g., making sure I was doing something I actually wanted to do.).

Meditate for 45+ minutes every day. Follow the instructions closely.

I was going to add this. Pretty good if someone is chronically mentally fatigued by their lifestyle, or has mild ADHD symptoms from too much screentime.

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