Learn about how stress can be enhancing (e.g., additional energy, cognitive power, access to memory sets) because what you believe about stress strongly impacts your physiological response to it.
Deliberately seek out and do difficult things or challenges (in a safe manner) to grow and enhance the activity in your anterior mid-cingulate cortex, which improves your ability to manage stress and generalizes to other challenges.
To shift your circadian clock, first identify your temperature minimum (approx. 2-3 hours before your typical alarm-free wake-up time). Then, expose your eyes to bright light in the 2-3 hours prior to this minimum to phase delay your clock (wake up later), or in the 2-3 hours after to phase advance it (wake up earlier).
When traveling, apply the light exposure rule based on your home temperature minimum for the first three days to quickly shift to the local schedule, strategically seeking or avoiding light. Also, eat, engage in activity, and participate in social rhythms on the local schedule to aid adaptation.
Take a sauna, hot bath, or warm shower about two hours before sleep to improve sleep quality. This external warming causes your core body temperature to cool down, which is necessary for falling and staying deeply asleep.
Engage in self-exploration and introspection to recall or sense a “pure feeling state of yum” from earlier in your life, independent of external expectations. Use external feedback as calibration points to guide you back to this personal feeling, recognizing that passion is often rooted in a feeling rather than just an activity.
Control the temperature of your sleeping environment to improve sleep; your body temperature needs to drop by 1-3 degrees to fall and stay deeply asleep, and increase by 1-3 degrees to wake up refreshed.
To relax and slow your perception of time, view things at a distance with unpredictable features (e.g., clouds, waves, an aquarium) as this lowers your visual system’s frame rate.
For cognitive work requiring logical analysis and typing, focus on things up close to increase your visual system’s frame rate. Additionally, consider using 40 hertz tones to entrain brain circuits for this higher frame rate work.
Use red light (e.g., a party light) for about 30 minutes before sleep to mellow out and reduce cortisol levels, as opposed to other artificial lighting.
If you find that moving your body (e.g., bouncing legs, tapping foot) helps you dispel energy and focus better, allow yourself to do so, as this can manage anticipatory activity and optimize your work state.
Consider taking AG1 daily (once or twice) to ensure meeting quotas for vitamins, minerals, prebiotics, and probiotics, especially for micronutrients that are difficult to obtain in sufficient quantities from whole foods alone.