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He called this “prevalence-induced concept change.” Essentially “problem creep.” It explains that as we experience fewer problems, we don’t become more satisfied. We just lower our threshold for what we consider a problem. We end up with the same number of troubles. Except our new problems are progressively more hollow.
Modern humans may have an unmet need to do what’s truly difficult for us. New research shows that depression, anxiety, and feeling like you don’t belong can be linked to being untested.
Engaging in an environment where there’s a high probability of failure, even if you execute perfectly, has huge ramifications for helping you lose a fear of failing. Huge ramifications for showing you what your potential is.
“Confronting risk, fear or danger produces optimal stress and discomfort, which in turn promotes outcomes such as improved self-esteem, character building, and psychological resilience,”
boredom. “Tolstoy had this great quote in Anna Karenina that says boredom is a ‘desire for desires,’ ” said Danckert. “So boredom is a motivational state.”
Our brains essentially have two modes, focused and unfocused. Focused mode is a mind at attention. It’s on when we’re processing outside information, completing a task, checking our cellphone, watching TV, listening to a podcast, having a conversation, or anything else that requires us to attend to the outside world. Unfocused mode occurs when we’re not paying attention. It’s inward mind-wandering, a rest state that restores and rebuilds the resources needed to work better and more efficiently in the focused state. Time in unfocused mode is critical to get shit done, tap into creativity,
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evil. Apps are engineered around Fogg’s Behavior Model. If that sounds like something menacing that was cooked up in a mind-control lab, that’s because it…kind of was? “Three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt,” wrote Stanford psychologist B. J. Fogg.
“I like the simple definition of addiction being ‘continued use despite adverse consequences,’ ” said Brewer.
Or, as the Cedars Sinai scientist put it, “If you eat…before bed, you’re not going to have any autophagy. That means you’re not going to take out the trash, so the cells begin to accumulate more and more debris.”
Because well-being is really a by-product of the interaction between a person’s external and internal conditions.
“The mind is afflicted with many delusions. But they come down to three,” continued the lama. “And those are greed, anger, and ignorance. When your mind is not taken care of, these three things have an advantage.
Scientists say our impossible laziness—once exceedingly rare—is leading to dangerously low levels of muscle. This condition is called sarcopenia, which is the loss of muscle mass and function, and it’s now creeping into younger populations for the first time in any species in all of history.
Even modern athletes are unimpressive compared to a run-of-the-mill ancient. The arms of the average prehistoric woman, for example, were 16 percent stronger than those of today’s Olympic rowers, according to scientists at the University of Cambridge.
