Julian

It doesn't necessarily hinder your personal development. It may keep you from running into destructive people.. Or it could make you appear more mysterious. Perhaps you should become more shy?

Do you know and use apps such as Stop, Breath & Think, or chatbots like Youper? I like the concept that they suggest you techniques based on your current emotions, especially for ones that are troubling in the moment. The techniques they suggest are usually mindfulness meditation or CBT, which have firm scientific routings. Likely, if you're like me, you've encountered other self-help techniques as well. Some of them you might have found particularly useful at one point, but do you remember to apply it when you're wrapped up with some thought/emotion? I often get stuck in one frame of mind and forget what helped me out. At other times, I hear about a promising technique, but I'm uncertain as to whether as has proven to be effective. Surely, there's some bullshit out there. So it would be useful to know what worked for other people. I'd like to suggest the idea of a website, where, for instance, the user picks from a list of emotions (anxiety, guilt, anger, depression, etc) or possibly something like craving, stuck-on-problem, overthinking... rates the intensity on a SUD scale (0 to 10) and gets a list of self-help techniques suggested, which hopefully have been rated by the community for their effectiveness*, for the user to pick from. *(Additional criteria are thinkable as well, such as: - can I do it in public without looking weird? - home much time it takes - if it requires equipment, such as writing equipment, or whatever) After going through the technique the user would rate his perceived intensity again on a SUD scale. That way it can be known if it helped or not. The idea is that as more people try out those techniques, the more data can be collected to assess those techniques for their effectiveness, and the better suggestions the next user will get. Community-based/driven would mean that users can add/moderate/edit content. (Perhaps this could be done similar to how Wikipedia or Stackoverflow works). What do you think about this idea? Would you use it? Do you have any criticism or suggestion?

If you have tried meditation you certainly know how hard it is to get started. There are two main reasons why people are unable to start this habit. They are either bored or frustrated. There are two solutions to this. One is to force it, want it enough and just stick with the habit until it becomes part of your daily routine. This is how I did it. There is, however, a much better way. Let me say this quickly. There has been a lot of research on optimal experience since the rise of positive psychology. One is especially relevant here. The work of Mihály Csíkszentmihályi and his concept of flow. This is the chart. The vertical axis represents the difficulty of a task and the horizontal your skill-level at it. When both levels match each other we have flow. And as you can see it doesn't have to be exact. A slight mismath is allowed here. Here's the trick. If we go above the flow line (where the challenge is greater than your skill) you will necessarily feel overwhelmed and anxious. If your are below (in other words, if it is too easy for you) you will feel bored. I would suspect that most starting-out meditators feel overwhelmed by what they are trying to do ("Stop thinking, I cannot stop thinking!") and therefore give up after a while because they don't think they can do it. A good way to start as a beginner is to do the 'Do-Nothing' technique. All you do in that is to sit, move little or not at all, and let whatever happen happen. Personally I like the breath count. The instructions are simple. Pick one aspect of your breath, say the feeling of air going into your nostrils, and count x iterations of that. Maybe you start with five, and if five is to easy for you do ten. Maybe ten is too hard and seven is where you should be. See if you can get into the flow state, where you challenge and your skill math each other. After that I like to do what I would call coasting. (You know how when you drive and leave your foot from the gas how the car is still rolling). The same things happens in meditation. So at the end of your meditation try coasting a little. Your attention tends to rest where you were even if you don't try to.

I bought this book because it's subtitle looked very promising: A research-based programs for strength training, body building, and complete fitness in 12 minutes a week. In this book he throws around quite a lot of technical terms, which can be intimidating at first. The author is a medical doctor by the way. But the research that he shows is interesting and he convinces you not only that cardio is bad but also that you don't need to spend a lot of time for good muscle growth. Oh boy, what he saves in time he makes up in intensity. He shows you an exercise plan to do. When I go to the gym to do it I leave physically exhausted. The thing is, it works. I'd recommend this book for people who are comfortable with technical jargon and who want an efficient exercise routine with little time invested.

@varkolaka122 This book gives you a rough exercise plan. You can do these exercises either with machines or with a barbell, some weights, and a training bench.

(In this thread you can ask and answer questions about Leo's Video: 3 Step Formula to Be Ruthlessly Effective At Anything. Thanks in advance for anyone that participates. You are all welcome.) So here are some questions: Let's say I stumble upon three potential techniques for my specific intention x. Presumably, I would have to try out all of them out to test which one works best for me. What would be an adequate time period to make such a decision? Can I judge the effectiveness of a technique over a day, a week or a month? What would be some simple and clear-to-evaluate criteria for judging the effectiveness of a technique? Are high-yield techniques universally effective or do they differ from person to person? (My opinion: They do differ. Yet, at the very heart of it, those principles that work underneath are ones that always worked. But also, the human psyche (and body) is complex and responds better to some "treatments" than others.) Can a technique that worked very well for you at one point stop working after you have done it for a long period of time? If you're currently in the habit of using a highly effective technique every day (and have committed yourself to doing so for 6 to 12 months) but find a better technique in the midst of it should you start using the new one (even if that destroys momentum) or should you stay and finish what you have committed yourself to do in the first place?

I'm just curious. Which person inspired you? Which words had an impact on your life? For me it was when I read T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets: "We shall not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our exploration will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." Thats just beautiful to me.

Hey there! David Hawkins is a unique character. He's enlightened and talks a lot about his model of consciousness that he developed. His aim is to guide you through those various levels of consciousness and emotions by teaching you how to 'surrender'. Now, this sounds very abstract but in truth it's very practical. If you want to get the essence of it I recommend you watch one of Leo's videos called "How to Deal With Strong Negative Emotions".

I was out with my friend last night. In a cafe we saw two beautiful girls coming in and after a while we approached them. Soon we started giggling and laughing and having fun. But as the evening progressed the girls (and I) became more and more tired. Awkward breaks became more and more frequent. I wanted to leave this mess because I feared that it would ruin the evening. However, my friend wanted to be a gentleman so we waited for them to make the choice. I think it was painful. They didn't take any initiative on their own and I had no clue if I was doing something wrong or something wright. The conversation died off. My question: Is it better to leave (and end on a positive note) or to be nice and wait until it all goes down? I mean, we had their numbers so we could always ask them to meet at another time. Why cling to them?

@Niki Thank you. That was very useful!

I spend about 90 minutes each day commuting with the bus or train. Since I don't like waisting my time I am searching for ways to be effective (which is hard). When there is not much going on I usually read a book. Otherwise I listen to audio books or programs. Do you have any further suggestions or ideas? What would you do with all that time in traffic?

@Mkayl Yes, the Tim Ferriss Show is a good one. I like to listen to that.

If you're really serious about becoming an efficient learner I would recommend you start here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn This will teach you how to learn more effectively. Plus, keep in mind that mere reviewing, reading, highlighting does nothing for you. Therefore, plan your studying in advance. Decide when, where, and how long your are going to do it. learn the subject by pretending that you're a professor who is giving his students a lecture. Talk out loud. Use flashcards. There are digital versions as well (http://ankisrs.net/). focus on what you can't rather than what you can. learn before bed. (Your mind will work on it when sleeping.) use your own words and try to come up with metaphors that work. There's of course much more. I leave you with some of the resources that I found helpful. http://calnewport.com/blog http://hilt.harvard.edu/blog/note-taking-tools-and-tips http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robyn-scott/the-30-second-habit-that-_b_4808632.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html

I wonder if anyone can tell me the truth: Do eggs affect cholesterol? Or is this just a myth?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULEEXuwc5uo

This book is about important topic, something we have heard about very often: do not multitask, do not get distracted, etc. But instead of arguing that distraction is bad Newport argues for the opposite (that focus is good). And he takes this to the maximum. Deep Work--which is his way of saying focused attention on a cognitively demanding task--is becoming both increasingly rare and valuable and therefore worth mastering in life. It is so hard (or deep) that one can't sustain it for more than an hour in the beginning and four hours afters being trained at this skill. This book shows you how to integrate deep work in your own life and it is filled with some new ideas you probably haven't heard of in similar books. He makes distinctions such as Deep Work vs Shallow Work, the Any-Benefit Mindset vs the Craftsman Mindset and he shows you an interesting way to do meditation (which I am sure, no enlightened person would acknowledge as a real meditation.)

I think noFap is a great thing to do, especially when you are addicted to PMO. I know when I started out it was a damn hard thing to do. Eventually I made the 90 day challenge and I turned into some courageous little guy. Of course I relapsed a couple of times. But now I have made about a year without it. And it's good. I rarely get the temptation. By the way, the thing that really helped me on my journey was getting an internet filter (such as K9) and giving your password to a friend you trust. It's very easy to get triggered and therefore it helps to have some tool and a friend to help you out. I heard that there are even more radical approaches. Such as having an e-mail send to your boss when you visit a porn-site. If everything else fails do that!

The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. Maybe I would add Inception and Enemy to it, because even though they aren't directly about self-help they make you question what's true. And I love those kind of movies.