The case of smartphones is unique. There is a war waged by corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees to take the most of your attention out from you (for sweet ad money), with attention engineers working on new designs and innovations all the time. I don't think that is a battle %95 of people can win. Just look around to people. I avoid fighting the battle by making heavy use of screen time features to ban all un-absolutely-necessary features (apps, websites) and whitelist only a small amount of apps and websites. And I make those restrictions unchangeable by myself, otherwise it becomes pointless.

I tried the lamp thing.

Attached it to a smart switch and programmed it to turn on at 7:30am every weekday.

I now get my best sleep between 7:30 and whatever time it is when I jump out of bed screaming because I've overslept.

The only thing that reliably wakes me up is the "Your New Morning Alarm" song by Marc Ribellet

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

These are fascinating points, and I'd like to know more. Can you link to your sources?

Yes, that famous marshmallow test has now been debunked several times from several angles. Many of them come down to the issue that the test was not measuring the participants' willpower so much as it was measuring their confidence that the test administrator would follow through on their promise.

So regardless of the validity of the method proposed here, I'd say that framing this article around references to that experiment is a mistake.

Hmm. The way I see it, self control is not a switch that is flipped on or off, it's definitely more like a spectrum of some kind, and generally I think having more of it is always going to be an improvement. Can't attest to whether or not this particular article's advice is actually useful; explanation hits me as a bit pop-sci but even if there were no scientific reason it should work, I bet it still helps in a sort-of placebo way.

But I digress. If I want to lose weight, I know "going on a diet" is not how it works. You need lifestyle changes that you keep. You need to change your relationship with food, exercise, and have some self-restraint to continue to make better choices and hold yourself to them.

But that does require deciding that you should "lose weight" or perhaps "eat healthier". On the other hand, if you decide that two beers every so often is OK with you, well, of course, everyone is pretty much entitled to decide that for themselves. But maybe to some degree, self-discipline is also partly not letting oneself make excuses for their own pointlessly harmful (even if only a tiny bit at once) behaviors that they'd probably ultimately be better off without. It's easy, since well, all of us, including me, do this sort of thing all the time: we're only human, after all.

That said, there's obviously no objectively correct answer, it's definitely not that simple. Nobody orients their lives around just what is "healthier" or "safer" because that would be boring and depressing, no doubt about it. But to the point about alcohol, I don't really drink anymore and even though I never had a drinking problem, I just don't really miss it. It never really did a ton for me, I mostly am just dumber when drunk. I'd prefer to be in control of my state of mind for the most part, so I don't generally have interest in drugs that impair your state of mind much. Not to mention, alcohol is probably not good for you in moderation after all anyways, so eh.

I feel that it's pretty likely that people need to hear different things at different phases of life, though, and this is just what I feel like I need with where I'm at now. Maybe I'll have to throw it all out later :)

What do you mean? Soberity is indeed not fun, it's just more peaceful and not miserable.

No, the point is that the self discipline needed to hold one’s breath is lower than the self discipline needed to take one specific values-aligned action. And that, in turn, is lower than the self discipline needed to simply not do the thing that isn’t values-aligned, without a method.

Of course doing anything requires some degree of self discipline, if you want to call it that. But not all actions need iron-clad discipline.

Really glad to hear that. My recommendation is to put a lot of emphasis on the "environment" step toward the end of the article. Otherwise, you might find yourself gaining a merely temporary hold of self-control only to get distracted and fall back into a previous pattern of thinking/behavior.

Not sure it was debunked, maybe a bit deflated though. The replication only found the effect to have half of the power as the original.

Edit: nvm looks like it's garbage lol https://anderson-review.ucla.edu/new-study-disavows-marshmal...

The replication problems of the marshmallow test are certainly interesting, but I'm not sure how they are relevant to the point being made by Robert Sapolsky in the quoted passage.

His point has nothing to do with the predictive powers of the test. Instead it's that the children who succeeded in deferring gratification succeeded by means of effective strategies rather than by stoicism or genetics.

Indeed the author did. Thanks for the catch.

just short of kegel exercises

Pardon me for asking what sounds like an aggressive or leading question, I assure you it’s not: if you have to take a pill to get your work done, could it be that you’re doing the wrong work? I always feel like if I have to take drugs to accomplish something non-medical, maybe I wasn’t meant to accomplish that thing.

Mom

Can I have edit permissions restored so I can rewrite it to be less inflammatory? I was harsh because I've wasted a lot of my time on this stuff which I'd rather help others avoid - I went into this in a reply to the author in the comment thread for context.

For what it's worth I would reword it as:

If you become aware that you’re scared, stressed or overactive and distracted, do some 4-4-4-4 box method breathing until your mind calms down. I believe this a better method than the one suggested in this article - it is a proven technique that’s used by military personnel in life or death scenarios. This post strikes me as a convoluted system that is going to be difficult to remember in the heat of the moment and therefore difficult to implement successfully. I am also sceptical about the effectiveness of the “ransom decision”. “10,000 learning cycles” of self discipline is also vague and doesn’t really map to the original 10,000 hours concept. I personally believe you’re far better off sticking to simple solutions for productivity and self discipline.

The only downside is wasted time, and possibly wasted money if people get hooked into the productivity rabbit hole and end up spending ridiculous amounts of money on apps, books, gadgets and whatever else trying to be more productive.

I say this as someone who was probably like you once. I took a Big 5 personality test in my mid twenties that said that I had a low conscientiousness score which meant that I was pretty much destined to be a low earner as a high conscientiousness score is the trait most linked to high earners and achievement. What followed was probably a period of about seven years where I also tried all the meditation techniques whilst relentlessly trying to optimise my productivity, work and life, resulting in an inevitable burn out.

Following that, I like many others on here, have ended up just using a few text files for organisation and I am probably more organised than I have ever been. I use one file with day headings with tasks underneath that I plan to do on each day. And then I have other files for projects that just contain lists of tasks relating to that project. When I'm ready to work on one of those tasks I move them into the main file. It's that simple. I am happier and more focussed than I was using any of these other systems.

I make my text files in Obsidian, other people use org mode, some people use Google/Apple notes and others use Vim and plain text files. Even though it lead me to where I am now, I still look back and cringe at all the wasted time and energy I spent investigating and using all these other systems. I've done comments on reddit and elsewhere outlining my own overly convoluted systems that I might go back and delete in case someone stumbles on them and they lead people down the wrong path. KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid, really is the best strategy. And I suspect that also applies to regaining control with breathing which is why 4-4-4-4 works so well.

I remember the enthusiasm and confidence I felt when I thought I'd found some great method and how much I wanted to share it so don't let me stop you if that's what you want to do. But I'd wager in five years you'll have forgotten all about this, you'll be using something far simpler, and you will probably also cringe if you do remember it or come across an article like this from someone else.

For anyone interested, I first came across it in Unbeatable Mind by Mark Divine. If I remember right it also goes into the OODA loop and other mental models, tips and tricks plus some info on physical fitness and flexibility. Good book.

It's quite relaxing, but I get the impression that's because your mind is filled with "Count to 4"/"Blarg my nose is stuffy"/"Jesus why is holding my breath for 4 seconds so hard"/"Wow I actually have to push to empty my lungs in 4 seconds"/etc

> that you’re scared, stressed or overactive and distracted,

I believe that would come under overactive and distracted considering the author states "Maybe you're doomscrolling a social feed instead of working on that important project."

What, more so than holding yourself hostage by holding your breath? The aim of 4-4-4-4 is to get into the habit of calming the mind down so that the desire passes with the subsequent realisation that all desires pass. This seems like it's relying on willpower which is only going to take you so far.

It was referring to hours of practice so 10,000 hours made you a master but what the fuck constitutes 10,000 learning cycles of self discipline? Has he spent 10,000 hours sat in meditation like a monk? I highly doubt it. It’s nonsense the author is using to try and give himself some credibility.

He also links to a blog post describing his “somewhat hardcore work routine” and how adhd is his “superpower”. It’s a hard pass from me.