Take agency over designing your lifestyle to be ideal for you, consciously creating dynamic social experiences while also protecting dedicated alone time. This approach makes your social homeostatic system feel more elastic, flexible, and resilient, and helps you become comfortable in your own skin by investing in the relationship with yourself.
Drastically limit time spent on email and social media, aiming for less than one hour per week, by being selective about what to open and responding quickly. This ‘declutters consciousness,’ allowing for greater creativity and epiphanies by preventing the brain from being exhausted by unnecessary tasks.
Diversify your ‘happiness portfolio’ beyond work accomplishments by engaging in various hobbies and non-work activities. This provides resilience when things go wrong in one area of life and contributes to being a more flexible, creative, and engaged individual.
Prioritize social interactions that involve mutual investment, real-time synchrony, and known identities over asynchronous, low-investment interactions like general social media posts. High-quality interactions are more likely to provide ‘social nourishment’ and satiate the need for social contact, whereas low-quality interactions may not release beneficial neurochemicals and can even create more hunger for connection.
Actively seek and value unfiltered feedback, even if it’s negative or ‘stings,’ by implementing anonymous surveys or engaging with platforms where people feel safe to express true opinions. This provides ‘ground truth’ and valuable information for learning and improvement, fostering a more accurate understanding of reality.
Dissolve one packet of an electrolyte drink (like Element) in 16 to 32 ounces of water and drink it first thing in the morning, and also during physical exercise. Proper hydration and adequate electrolytes (sodium, magnesium, potassium) are critical for optimal brain and body function, as even slight dehydration can diminish cognitive and physical performance and are vital for cell and neuron function.
Engage in meditation programs, mindfulness trainings, yoga nidra, or non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) sessions, even for short durations like 10 minutes. These practices can greatly restore levels of cognitive and physical energy and place the brain and body into different beneficial states.
Seek out or foster social structures and work environments where leadership roles are dynamic and based on competence for specific tasks, rather than fixed, dictatorial hierarchies. This type of structure is considered ‘very healthy’ and allows for more flexible and effective group functioning.
For those in mentorship roles, encourage trainees and subordinates to take independent initiative and pursue projects or experiments that no one explicitly told them to do, ideally at an earlier stage in their development. This fosters the critical transition to becoming an independent scientist or leader, which is beneficial for the future of research and other fields.
Strive to include people with diverse experiences and ’experiential statistics’ in decision-making bodies across all sectors of society. This brings in different biases and perspectives on what is important to work on and study, leading to more profound and relevant outcomes.
Approach psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA with extreme caution, recognizing their potential for increasing neuroplasticity and empathy, but only in controlled clinical settings and with adequate support. They are not for recreational use and can be psychologically unsafe for certain individuals, especially young people.
Explore opportunities to contribute to science projects that crowdsource data analysis, such as tracing neurons in connectome projects. This allows individuals to contribute to fundamental scientific discoveries, like understanding brain structure, even without a traditional scientific background, and can be a fulfilling experience.