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3 things for me: 1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. 2)

• elmigranto 10y ago
  > Occasional Fasts There was a white paper on /r/science about how decreasing amount of sugar one consumes, lowers chances of developing some kinds of cancer (can't find an exact link, something along the lines "less sugar starves cancer"). Pretty interesting, thanks s for sharing!
  • rconti 10y ago
    There's a lot of research coming out about sugar being one of the most unhealthy things one can consume.
• Tenoke 10y ago
  >1) Meditation, I used to think it was something hippies did. I now think its worth 10 IQ points. I honestly can't recommend it enough. I wish this was true && that there was well compiled evidence that could convince me that this is the case.
  • paloaltokid 10y ago
    Why not just give it a try on your own? Do it for 21 days and don't let yourself have an opinion on it until that stretch of time is done. Then see how you feel and make a decision.
    • sdenton4 10y ago
      At least in the western Zen tradition, there's a strong element of 'try this and see if it works for you' which I deeply appreciate. Empirical religion ftw.
      • TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Given how complicated the brain - and its interactions with the body - is, and even how many successful medical interventions depend on placebo effect, it seems reasonable that the approach of "try it and see if it works for you" is quite effective.
        • paloaltokid 10y ago
          I think it's just common sense. Sure, we could wait for science to prove XYZ fact about meditation...but if it makes you feel better today, why wait? You might be dead by the time the study comes out.
          • TeMPOraL 10y ago
            Sure, but my point is that this works beyond the expectations of "common sense". The XYZ fact may turn out to actually not generalize. With mental phenomena, often how you got somewhere matters more than the thing itself. For a nice negative example, think about taste - many of us have strong repulsion towards some foods caused by random events in the past. Like, for many years parsley made me nauseous, and it started when as a kid I ate a broth and then threw up. It's a common thing that when you're sick your brain can create associations between how you feel and what you smell or eat. So you end up hating some food not because it's objectively bad, not because everyone else hates it too, but because of a random event in your life that happened to get associated with it. I treat n=1 experiments as a way to probe such random associations. If you find out that something works for you, it doesn't matter that it isn't scientifically proven. It doesn't matter the effect doesn't generalize. It doesn't matter it works only through association and that this association was created due to you doing the experiment. If it works for you, it works for you. But to be clear - "it works for me" is the only thing you can say in such case. N=1 experiments are ok, but trying to generalize from them isn't. Saying "it must work because it worked for me" based on such experiment is of course quackery.
  • davelnewton 10y ago
    The benefits of meditation have been studied (not the "10 IQ points" bit), are well-documented, and easy to find. The studies have been ramping up recently, too, which is great, and long-overdue.
  • tudorw 10y ago
    Let's guess how much money has been spent investigating the possible benefits of meditation, compared to the research funds available for commercially exploitable therapies, I'm guessing it's probably similar to that spent on sleep, in relative terms, zero, what's the point of a commercial organisation showing something free has health benefits?
    • icebraining 10y ago
      Who said it must be a commercial organization? Public universities and non-profit institutes do plenty of research.
      • tudorw 10y ago
        Do they, care to cite some research on sleep or meditation?
        • icebraining 10y ago
          Sure, I'll spare you the five minutes of web searches: http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/192255_en.html http://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/192255_en.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866254/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866254/ http://sleep.stanford.edu/research/recent_publications.html http://sleep.stanford.edu/research/recent_publications.html http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/org/ncsdr/research/ http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/org/ncsdr/research/ http://www.pennstatehershey.org/web/psychiatry/research/overview/srtc/references http://www.pennstatehershey.org/web/psychiatry/research/over... https://www.unisa.edu.au/Education-Arts-and-Social-Sciences/Psychology-Social-Work-and-Social-Policy/Research/Research-Publications/#sleep https://www.unisa.edu.au/Education-Arts-and-Social-Sciences/... http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.2016.25.issue-3/issuetoc http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.2016.25.issue... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27460004 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27460004 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27429096 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27429096
          • tudorw 10y ago
  • reactor 10y ago
    Please don't get into a mode of thinking that I need evidence for everything. It is free, try it yourself and see it works, if it doing any good for YOU, then it's just immaterial if it was never proved or not worked for anyone else (coz everyone is different, something works for you may not work for them) I'm saying this with first hand experience, I was skeptical (I think lazy is better word), but I started recently, been on four weeks now and it is working for me, never going back.
• OhHeyItsE 10y ago
  Any meditation tips? I've gone through multiple fits & starts but I just can't keep my mind from wandering.
  • iamben 10y ago
    Count. Count each breath as you do it. When you get to ten, start at one. If you feel your mind wander, start your count at 1 again.
    • fsloth 10y ago
      This. Counting is the checksum. And what ever you do, don't blame yourself. The mind is supposed to work that way - and you are training it to be a more observant of itself.
    • sova 10y ago
      My 80-some year old long-term meditation practitioner says count from 1..4 and visualize the numbers as you breath in and out. He said ten is just too many, but four works rather well!
      • erikpukinskis 10y ago
        I do four, and I consider myself lucky if I get to 4 once in the 15 minutes I allot. If I could reliably get to 4 I might try 5.
    • teddyc 10y ago
      FWIW: I have been told not to count and to try not to focus on your breathing, as both are distractions.
      • hinkley 10y ago
        We use lots of props while learning. A crutch is good for you as long as you stop using it when you don't need it anymore.
    • 10y ago
• umbs 10y ago
  Agree with all three, but #2 for me has now become the very important due an incident last week. I pulled an all nighter and next day rear ended a vehicle near a traffic signal because I dozed off for a second. The impact was minimal and no one was harmed. It was the first accident with my fault in 15 years of driving. I am approaching 40 and have 2 young kids. I cannot get my priorities wrong at this point. Many lives depend on me and hence it is imperative that I take care of my health. I am sharing so people in my situation may recognize importance of our health at this stage in life.
  • bonsai80 10y ago
    Good call. I'm curious, what is your solution to getting more sleep? Frequently those all-nighters come as a result of deadlines and pressure from work. The usual tradeoff is work vs family vs sleep, where often you only get to pick 1. Have you had any success in getting 2 or even 3 of those together?
    • jackzampolin 10y ago
      Just say no. You are better on a full night of sleep for both your family and your job. They need to be understanding there.
      • DougN7 10y ago
        Totally agree. I worked on an app where we had customers who had installed our 'agent'. We were forced to do a late night update. Whoops - sent out a version that would never be able to update again - there went 100K customers we could never upgrade.
        • cOgnaut 10y ago
          Wow, what went so wrong to the point that it blocked the update process?
    • umbs 10y ago
      In my case, there is lot of inefficiencies. I can easily cut down on few things (a) I spend time browsing emails while lying down (easily eats 30 mins per night). (b) No meetups in evenings. (c) Excuse from business meetings after a certain time (d) Cut down on social events on weekdays. (e) Push all non-essential things to weekends. I made this list for myself and it helps free up evenings. Your situation may differ. I realized that my kids are my investments as well. In to someone's future/life (not trying to sound too dramatic). So, that's highest priority at this point and hence the sleep.
• iamben 10y ago
  Wow, took the words out of my mouth. Mediation has been a game changer for me. Understanding the amount of sleep I need has been a big one as well. Also, trying to optimise the way I do things / my systems. We all have them, whether we realise it or not. I'm just trying to better get on top of mine: wake -> meditation -> exercise -> breakfast -> office -- etc.
  • mudil 10y ago
    Honest question. How is meditation different from being engrossed with a hobby? Say doing gardening or fishing, and being totally mentally in it. Just wondering..
    • metaxy2 10y ago
      Mindfulness meditation is not unlike that, but the thing you get engrossed in is your entire mental experience: sounds, smells, the feeling of the air on your skin, even your thoughts (though you're supposed to let them go as soon as you notice them). It's a very different feeling than being engrossed in some single thing to the point where you lose track of everything else. It's more like being engrossed in _everything_ to the point that you lose track of all of the noise that's usually going on in your head, and on a good day, even your sense of self. Also, most forms of meditation are very soothing and tend to get you into a hyper-relaxed state that you don't get from most hobbies, though I'm sure it can happen with some hobbies, like gardening.
      • Jtsummers 10y ago
        Meditation can be aided by repetitive, relatively thoughtless [0], tasks. Fishing and (some) gardening activities would work well for some people. [0] The task shouldn't require deliberate mental effort on your part. Initially, it may, but eventually it becomes something you can do without consideration. Fold paper cranes for hours and hours. At first you think about it, eventually you're just reaching for the next square and realize you've made a few hundred cranes.
    • squeaky-clean 10y ago
• tcoppi 10y ago
  Any reason/research why you decided on 3 day fasts?
  • ryanlm 10y ago
    Fasting has messed up my body. I DO NOT recommend doing this. Please consult a doctor first.
    • ljk 10y ago
      what kind of fasting did you do?
      • ryanlm 10y ago
        Just not eating for 2 days. It would throw of my "rhythm" and I would overeat for days until it balanced out again. Maybe my appetite is larger than most people.
        • pacala 10y ago
          Not a doctor and sample size of one. What worked for me was resetting the rhythm itself, by under-eating over long periods of time, 2 weeks at least, up to 1-2 months. I keep telling myself hungry is the new normal, and in the long run it becomes the new normal. Under-eating is not even that hard if one goes mostly veggie, that is eat fruits / veggies / eggs / cheese / yoghurt / fish and skip sugar / meat / pasta / bread / rice / deep fried *. Few more tricks: always have a bottle of water nearby, take time to have a meal [15 minutes latency for full signal to propagate to the brain], snack lightly on fresh fruits, veggies and yoghurt along the day [never go crazy hungry].
          • ryanlm 10y ago
            I can do that during the day. How do you prevent yourself from having midnight snacks? I sometimes "sleep eat" -- Very bad habit that I NEED to spare.
• sliverstorm 10y ago
  my doctor friends believe that eating less is the secret to increasing life span I've heard this before and it makes some sense. Don't know how to reconcile it against my desire to get out of the 17-18 BMI pit I've been in, and put on some healthy muscle (which requires a lot of food).
  • semi-extrinsic 10y ago
    BMI means little for an individual. As an example, there are several world class athletes with high BMIs; according to the CDC dedinitions, LeBron James is "overweight" with a BMI of 27.5, and Didier Defago (one of the best downhill skiers) has 29 which is bordering on obese (according to the definition).
    • sliverstorm 10y ago
      I'm not a world class athlete. I personally believe BMI is perfectly reasonable for ordinary people. If your BMI is 32, odds are very good it's not because you're actually a competitive powerlifter... The point is, I'm too skinny, want to put on some muscle for general health, but have to eat a lot to do it.
• benologist 10y ago
  Resonates with me, especially the importance of sleep. I was very pleased to see on TV here in Costa Rica the other day an advertisement on mental health awareness that explicitly tells people to get their 8 hours! Diet and exercise have also been things I've been learning very belatedly to take seriously. I'm currently trying to improve at listening, communicating, and reading instructions properly.
• mrfusion 10y ago
  Did you have to work up to three days? How do you be social on fasting days?
• wyldfire 10y ago
  I think fasting is pretty interesting. I occasionally challenge myself with a ~24h fast and I think it's probably worthwhile. A three-day fast would be difficult for me socially -- I don't think I could skip consecutive dinners with the family (and attending the meal but not eating is IMO not polite). That said, it sounds appealing.
  • Jtsummers 10y ago
    Could you eat less? Not an absolute fast, but more a minimal dinner. Have a salad and water, instead of whatever the main dish is.
    • wyldfire 10y ago
      Yeah, good idea.
• ljk 10y ago
  definitely getting similar result from fasting. Even though it's not as extreme as yours(16/8 - only eating during 8-hour window in the evening) i also have noticed being more "lively" during the day; might be placebo but it's working out pretty well. The beginning was pretty difficult but once you're used to it it's nice.
• andrepd 10y ago
  Not a hippie, but you do meditation and fasts... Okay, that came out a bit incisive. Do you have any scientific backing to support those claims? I'm especially interested in fasting. Not eating for 3 days a month does not seem especially healthy. Then I see the claim that it cures cancer and forgive me if all my alarm bells go off.
  • davej 10y ago
    > Do you have any scientific backing to support those claims? Not OP but this is a good summary: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946160/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946160/ > Then I see the claim that it cures cancer and forgive me if all my alarm bells go off. I think OP was implying that it may decrease your chances of getting cancer not cure it. Everyone will get cancer if they live long enough (based on the current state of medicine, that may change in the future). edit: I should say that personally I don't really practice intermittent fasting (at least not consciously). But I don't eat after 8pm either, so I tend to do at least a 12 hour fast every day because of that. Sometimes I also skip breakfast which makes it a 16-18 hour fast. My biggest meal of the day is usually lunch not dinner.
    • andrepd 10y ago
      This was precisely what I was looking for. Thanks, I'll look into it.
    • rconti 10y ago
      Huh. Wow, thanks. I had no idea.
    • hinkley 10y ago
      There was also some research suggesting that normal cells were insulated from some of the effects of chemo by a period of fasting. Tumor cells don't turtle up the way healthy cells do and so they absorbed higher relative doses. I'm fuzzy on the details but I believe they were trying to explain why outcomes were statistically better for early morning treatments (people coming in with an empty stomach to deal with nausea)
  • 10y ago
• bg4 10y ago
  How does one fast for three days?
  • beat 10y ago
    Simple. Don't eat. Drink water. Some people will allow juice on a fast.
    • erikpukinskis 10y ago
      I find it strange that people allow juice. If the purpose is to get your blood sugar down for a consistent stretch then juice would mess that up. I'd rather it a small high fiber, low sugar snack, like some brown rice with vegetables, than drink an equivalent amount of calories in juice form. I guess maybe the idea is the juice sugar gets digested quickly and you're back to empty, whereas the rice would stick around. I guess it's a question of whether it's better to go up to a 10 and then back down to a zero, or go to a 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
      • beat 10y ago
        I find it strange, too. I think it's more a magical-thinking issue, where juice is "liquid" and thus "water", rather than thinking about the nutritional impact.
      • throw94 10y ago
        I think fasting helps relax your digestive system. By drinking juice, you don't feel out of energy and still get some (many?) of the benefits of fasting.
    • lerpa 10y ago
      Don't eat and you forgot a fundamental part of it: tell everyone else you meet that you're fasting.
  • pizza 10y ago
    It's easier than most are conditioned to believe..
  • 10y ago
• halite 10y ago
  Can you describe the basic structure of your 3 day fast? Do you not eat anything for 3 days?
  • sjnair96 10y ago
    I too am interested in the details. 3 days seems like it would be very difficult!
  • sjnair96 10y ago
    I too am interested in the details. 3 days seems like it would be very difficult!
  • paweln 10y ago
    Yes, you don't eat anything, just drink lots of water. You can also begin and end fast with freshly squeezed fruit or vegetable juices, which is important when the fast is longer.
• cheez 10y ago
  Daily fasting and eating meat, fish and veggies makes my mind much sharper. I can see the 3 day fast improving cognitive performance but I can barely do the 20 hour fast as it is.
• mattlong 10y ago
  Question for you and everyone else that recommends fasting: What sort of exercise regimen to you maintain? Mine is fairly active (~5 days per week) and consists of a mix of cardio and strength training (mostly running, climbing, and weights). I feel that any level of fasting would quite negatively impact my performance in all of these.
  • nucleardog 10y ago
    I don't do the days-long fasts that others do, but usually try and eat something with a relatively low glycemic load about once every 24 hours. Generally that meal comes shortly after getting out of the gym, so my workout is usually after 22-23 hours of not eating. Exercise regimen is 3-4 days a week of strength training. Usually a moderate pace, 1.0-1.5 hours. Start the day with high-weight/low rep major lifts (deadlift, squat, bench), fill the middle with other high weight/low rep lifts, and towards the end as my energy is tapering off move to about 50% of 1RM and high rep sets of the same major lift until exhausted. Probably more than you wanted to know. :) So that all said, I've got the benefit of having maintained a more-or-less consistent workout regimen since before I started fasting and having logged every set along the way. When I started I was waiting for my performance to fall off a cliff... but it never came. My performance has remained steady and continued rising at close enough to the same rate as it was before that I'll call it "unaffected within some margin of error".
    • dhd415 10y ago
      Same here. No decrease in performance during fasts and I push myself pretty hard on both cardio and weights. If anything, I feel a little bit better since I tend to be a little more alert and focused during fasts.
• stevebmark 10y ago
  This is a great parody of Silicon Valley.
• rayalez 10y ago
  One cool tip - you can meditate while running in the morning. That way you can do two useful things at once, and meditation doesn't seem boring. It's also much easier to stop the thoughts, focus on the present moment, breathing, etc when you are running in a park as opposed to staring at the wall.
  • rufugee 10y ago
    Meditation while running sounds fascinating. Can you explain the technique? Any good sources of information online?
    • rayalez 10y ago
      Pretty much the same as any other meditation - the goal is to stop your mind from racing and to clear your head, stop thinking. As you run, you focus on your breathing, or on your body motions, or on the environment around you - whatever makes you feel "present", experiencing the moment around you instead of being in your head. And you just keep running without thinking for some period of time. Couple more bonuses of meditating while you're exercising: - You can focus on motions instead of breathing. That way you move better, and it's more fun, and it makes meditation easier. - You don't need a timer, you can just meditate while running a certain distance. Since you're doing it every day the timing will be pretty much the same, and you aren't subconsciously wondering when the timer is going to stop, you can just focus on enjoying your jogging.
      • StavrosK 10y ago
        Does meditation have any benefit for people who don't have an internal monologue? As I understand it, meditation helps you to clear the voice in your head, but what if you don't have one?
        • elbear 10y ago
          Meditation slows down your mind. This allows you to become more aware of your thoughts. You start to discover your thought patterns, what you believe about certain things, why you act in a certain way in certain situations. If you also practice something like loving-kindness (it sounds hippy, but it has scientific backing[1]), it can increase the quality of your relationships. [1]http://www.emmaseppala.com/18-science-based-reasons-try-loving-kindness-meditation-today/ http://www.emmaseppala.com/18-science-based-reasons-try-lovi...
• skynetv2 10y ago
  > Occasional Fasts. I normally fast from 6pm until noon the next day but I now do one 3 day fast each month. I think this is going to become more and more common as a way to head off cancer in the body. Lot of Indians fast. the reason is religious but many think the ancient just used religion etc as a tool to ensure their best practices are carried forward to future generations.
• jbhatab 10y ago
  personal experiences mostly match up with this even though I have no scientific evidence to back it up. I do have a question though, a 3 day fast?!?!?!?! 3 days of no food? I'm assuming you drink water? Do you drink coffee or use any some of stimulants?
• Kenji 10y ago
  My entire body starts to shiver uncontrollably when I don't eat for a day (the energy throughput of my body is crazy throughout a workday), I can't believe it's healthy and productive not to eat for 3 days in a row. I'd even say this is quite dangerous and unproductive advice. I advise everyone reading this not to do multiple days of fasting without consulting a doctor.
• Dowwie 10y ago
  I practiced vipassana for 30 minutes a day for months. I don't remember what happened in my life but I stopped meditation and haven't gone back to it since. I may have reprioritized my time as daily exercise was already eating away enough time. I have become more mindful even without practicing meditation anymore so it seems I did pick up a new skill/habit from training. I think I will give it another try.
• md8 10y ago
  No 3. What procedure do you follow for fasting. Could you elaborate please?