Prioritize getting a decent amount of sleep (7-8 hours for most adults) as the single most important action to maintain your body’s metabolic budget. Insufficient sleep accumulates a deficit, increasing risks for illness, depression, and anxiety.
After experiencing emotional ’expenditures’ or stress, actively replenish your body’s budget through sufficient sleep, healthy eating, and positive social connections. Failing to do so can lead to a metabolic deficit and illness.
Actively seek physical and social connections, like hugs or positive interactions, as they help replenish your body’s metabolic budget. These connections diminish the burden on your system and are biologically helpful.
Be kind to others, as this act is biologically helpful for your own metabolic budget and physical health. Kindness also increases the chance of reciprocal kindness, further diminishing stress on your system.
Treat other people with human dignity and kindness, and foster relationships where you receive the same treatment. This approach is physically and biologically helpful for your health, unlike constant conflict.
Practice deliberate breathing exercises, specifically diaphragmatic breathing, as it’s the only known biological way to gain control over your autonomic nervous system. This helps calm your system when you’re worked up.
Practice diaphragmatic breathing for five minutes in the morning and five minutes at night daily. Consistent practice over months will lower your resting heart rate and enable faster self-calming when worked up.
Gain control over your behaviors and attachments by proactively architecting your environment to prevent undesired outcomes, rather than relying on in-the-moment willpower. This strategy helps manage impulses more effectively.
When you experience an intense positive or negative reaction to information, stop and observe what’s going on, as it likely validates or violates a deeply held belief. Taking this moment to reflect before acting will lead to better decisions.
To gain control, practice taking other people’s perspectives regularly before critical moments, rather than trying hard in the moment. This makes the skill automatic and easier to apply when needed.
Practice taking another person’s perspective, especially when you feel anger or judgment, to move beyond your own viewpoint. This helps you understand complex situations and avoid ignorance.
When a partner or friend is distressed, ask them directly if they want empathy or a solution. This prevents offering unhelpful advice when they primarily seek understanding and support.
To provide empathy, listen to the person and reflect back what they said without adding anything, ensuring they feel heard and understood. This practice has a real biological consequence of calming their system.
When someone you care about is distressed, practice the difficult skill of sitting with their feelings without immediately trying to calm them down or regulate your own discomfort. This acknowledges their experience rather than pushing it away.
Develop emotional granularity by learning and using precise emotion concepts and words to describe your feelings. This practice helps you cope better, improves resilience, and can even aid recovery from physical illness.
Absolutely label emotions for children, as it helps them become culturally competent in emotion categories, enabling better communication and understanding of their own feelings. This leads to more precise emotional events and improved coping mechanisms.
When your brain automatically infers someone’s internal thoughts and feelings from their actions, ask them directly to check your understanding. This practice helps to avoid mistaking your guesses for objective reality.
Understand that your focus determines where your attention goes, and consciously direct it to change your experience. By choosing what to pay attention to, you can alter your immediate awareness.
Cultivate daily moments of awe by observing the irrepressible power of nature, such as a weed growing through concrete. This practice helps put your problems into perspective, providing an ’existential break’ for your nervous system.
Do not believe the old model that suppressing feelings is inherently bad and requires catharsis. The actual problem is getting continually worked up without replenishing your body’s metabolic budget.