3 Minute Monday
Hi friend,
One of the easiest ways to work out how to improve your mood is through inversion.
Making yourself happy seems a large, complex task, but making a happy person depressed is much simpler.
So what would you do if you wanted to make someone miserable?
Well, you’d probably mess with their sleep and wake cycle.
Then you’d ruin their nutrition, feed them poor quality, processed foods high in sugar.
You’d make sure they weren’t hydrated.
That they didn’t get any sunlight exposure or go outside.
Maybe they’d stay in bed all day.
You’d ensure they didn’t exercise so no feel-good chemicals were released post workout.
You’d remove any contact with friends, family or people who they connect with and are for them.
Then you’d probably make them spend too much time on their phone scrolling through anxiety-inducing social media feeds and comparing themselves to others online.
And you’d ensure they weren’t connected to a job which made them feel valued and like they were creatively contributing to something they care about.
That’s a pretty good start, I think we’ve made a robustly unhappy human there.
So the logic follows…
If that’s how you make a happy person depressed, it has to be true that ticking those boxes should make a depressed person feel better.
Not necessarily perfect, but certainly better.
The really insidious thing about feeling low is that the actions which make you feel worse are precisely what your mood encourages you to do, further worsening your state.
The bottom line is that if you want to be happy and haven’t covered all those bases, then you are not giving yourself the best opportunity to feel better.
Almost as important as the impact, is believing that our actions can impact our mood.
The locus of control falls back into your domain.
Not only CAN your actions impact the way you feel, but believing that helps to make you feel more in control of your life.
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MODERN WISDOM
I do a podcast which has had 40 million+ downloads. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
This week’s upcoming episodes:
Monday.
Life Hacks – Jonny & Yusef return to discuss the best meditation apps, how not to sneeze, journalling practises, free book summaries, the best fragrances and more.
Thursday.
Paul Millerd – a great breakdown of the relationship between success and happiness. How can you avoid the pitfalls of the Default Path? Where does our happiness stem from? Great conversation.
Saturday.
Not sure yet, maybe Dr Christian Busch on the science of luck.
THINGS I’VE LEARNED
1.
Relationships are dangerous.
“The most common reason for suicide is relationship problems, accounting for 40% of suicides.
After taking age, education, and income into account, divorced men are at nine times higher risk of suicide than divorced women” — Rob Henderson
2.
Assassins don’t run in the family.
John Wilkes Booth’s brother saved Abraham Lincoln’s son from being run over by a train.
3.
Fathers of daughters pay women more.
Women’s relative earnings increase 4% when their manager becomes the father of a daughter, rather than a son.
This daughter effect was found in 25 years of Danish small-business data.
LIFE HACK
How to overcome approach anxiety.
The pain of regretting not going up and speaking to someone is much worse than the pain of rejection.
Rejection lasts for a moment, regret lasts for a month.
This should motivate you to be fearless whenever you’re faced with approach anxiety, it’s a win-win situation.
Big love,
Chris x
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PS
Douglas Murray is on the show very soon. Pepper your angus.
