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Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup

254 points by ssclafani 16y ago

danilocampos 16y ago
This could have easily been titled "Staying Healthy and Sane." Useful ideas all around. In particular, business on meditation is interesting to me. I do all my best thinking in the shower. I suspect this is because without meaning to be, I'm in a meditative state there. Every time I have a really hard problem to ponder, I find a shower has the power to jolt me in the direction of the solution. I'd like to find a way to harness this in a more convenient way that doesn't require soap, water or nudity, so I'm going to check out the NSR site Alex recommends.
- troyk 16y ago
  Try thinking about the issue before you go to sleep. This has worked great for me, often I'll awake to a keen sense of understanding what I was thinking of, although a few times it has resulted in keeping me up for hours frustrasted with neither sleep or understanding!
  - danilocampos 16y ago
    Every time the challenge du jour pops into my head before sleep I just end up thinking about it for hours. And not sleeping. It's tough.
    - jackowayed 16y ago
      Me too. For a little while it feels productive and nice because I often have good ideas, but then after half an hour or so, I want my brain to shut up so I can sleep. A friend of mine told me she has a similar issue and has a special meditation that she does in bed to wind her brain down. I should email her, but if anyone has ways they deal with this issue, I'd love to hear them.
      - jlees 16y ago
        I absolutely do not think about stuff like that before I sleep - I try to spend at least an hour winding down with a book and peppermint tea or something similar. I do however think about tough issues when I'm half asleep in the morning, reaching for the snooze button. (Sometimes it's counterproductive, making me want to snooze more to make the world go away, but I reach some surprising insights here - and then crystallise them in the shower, of course!)
        sirrocco 16y ago
        I too use the book trick :) so to speak . Just 30 minutes of reading some SF before I go to sleep helps a lot. I then tend to think about the characters in the book or I imagine being on another planet :) . It really helps when I do that.
      - danilocampos 16y ago
        I'd love to hear her advice if she gets back to you on this.
- access_denied 16y ago
  > I'd like to find a way to harness this in a more convenient way David Allen's Geting Things Done is basically about this. Though, to get it you should read the book carefully and not glance over it to extract some todo-list building tips like obviously most authors of those shoddy 'productivity' blogs have done. The 'natural planning model' as described in the book, combined with a 'complete inventory of your work' updated regularly as described in the book, gives you essentially that.
Mongoose 16y ago
One tip I'd add to the diet section is to drink enough water. I find that always having cold water at arm's reach helps keep my mind fresh and alert. Also, making the switch from coffee to tea can have innumerable benefits to one's energy level and overall health.
- phjohnst 16y ago
  A thousand times yes. Having water at hand and always sipping is a really great way to tame hunger and oral fixations, and is great for your body to be flushing itself out. I find that tea doesn't give me as much of a high as coffee, but it lasts longer without any come-down. Awesome.
  - bentlegen 16y ago
    Tea puts me to sleep. I can drink the most caffeinated tea on the market, and I'll be nodding off in an hour. It's a real pain because I have difficulty digesting coffee, and I'm looking for alternatives. Appreciate any suggestions.
    - jamesk2 16y ago
      Try some Yerba Mate. Tea is made from the roots of that plant and has enough caffeine to give you a nice kick when you need it.
    - gnubardt 16y ago
      have you tried yerba mate?
    - roqetman 16y ago
      Try a true english tea like PG Tips - there's just no way you'll fall asleep after drinking a cup of that; the teabag is about 60% bigger than the average american teabag (one of those strange things is that teabags in america are smaller than the english version (same brand)).
    - Johngibb 16y ago
phjohnst 16y ago
This is a great article, very useful ideas. I think that the last point he makes is probably the most valuable and one that I only just learned, that is to not worry if you miss a workout or two, or if you have that cake on the weekend every once in a while. I always used to set myself a very strict plan for whatever I was trying to do, and inevitably whenever I fell off I would feel like I failed and wouldn't be able to get back to it. I've recently started taking a more relaxed approach to my 'goals' and I feel like I've made much more progress, as long as the trend is in the right direction you're good to go.
jlees 16y ago
A lot of this applies to working for yourself, or for a big company. Startups exaggerate the extremes of stress and crunch, but I pretty much do all these things (and have done for the last 18 months or so, so ~8 months of BigCo and ~10 months of CEO) and they work equally well in both contexts. As long as you're working somewhere that you can go and take a walk when your wheels are spinning. Things that I've found helpful: Vegetarian diet (currently trying vegan out to break my fro-yo addiction), yoga, running with a goal in mind, running without a goal in mind, massages, a long commute without a laptop. All except the former help me let my thoughts just drift and it's surprising what pops out.
- al3x 16y ago
  I probably should have put massage in there. I don't get massages regularly, but man do I ever feel better when I do. Good suggestion.
  - jfb 16y ago
    When it all gets to be too much, I like to go the Imperial Day Spa (on Geary & Fillmore) and just soak for a while. Then, the acupressure. Highly recommended.
jkincaid 16y ago
One other thing that has helped me keep my sanity: wash and fold laundry service. You take your dirty laundry, put it in a bag, and they'll clean and fold it for a modest fee (the place around the corner from me is around $1.10 a pound). In urban areas you can find services that will pickup and deliver. It's a luxury, but it isn't that expensive (especially if you typically rely on coin-op laundromats anyway) and it's one less thing to worry about.
- cperciva 16y ago
  the place around the corner from me is around $1.10 a pound The pricing is based on weight? It seems to me that the time it takes to fold a pound of clothing varies dramatically based on the type of clothing...
  - jlees 16y ago
    But is it quicker to charge every customer the same rate per lb of laundry than to spend time analysing the laundry or ask your customers to pre-sort? I'd say yes.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- iseff 16y ago
  Funny, for me it's the opposite. I've taken to kind of _enjoying_ folding laundry since I started working on AppStoreHQ. It's the mindless release that I need every once in a while.
- mattmichielsen 16y ago
  I do laundry about once a week, and it takes about 2 minutes to load and start the washer, and after an hour (or whenever you get back to it) another 2 minutes to load and start the dryer. After that, you can just get clean clothes out of the dryer instead of dresser drawers. My girlfriend doesn't like this life-optimization.
dstnbrkr 16y ago
Been shopping for a martial arts school for the exact same reason - seems like a great way to add variety to what would otherwise become a dull workout routine.
mminolt 16y ago
You are so right. I have been in the space for 15 years. Started my career at Netscape and kept going to smaller and more edgy startups since. The most stressful episodes happened at dead-in-the-water memories like RealNames and OpenHarbor. Let's put it this way though, I have learned and I am proud to say that I am now a sustainable contributor. I can keep going for a long time but there will always be something crazy about working in any entrepreneurial setting that is both my engine and a best that has to be tamed or else...
chaosmachine 16y ago
"Taking in a brainy podcast at the gym combats that feeling." Similarly, I find watching TED videos while lifting weights (at home) is a nice combination.
portman 16y ago
For me, spending time with my kids (ages: 0, 2, 4) produces a similar results as exercise and meditation do for Alex: - "combats stress" - "always feel calmer than when I started" - "feel like I’ve got my head screwed on straight" - "makes my work time more productive" YMMV, but this is what works for me.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  When they hit 2/4/6 or 4/6/8 I'll be curious if you'll say the same thing. :) I know there are many parents who, after having to put up with kids and their behavior/mindsets long enough, without break, feel like they are starting to go crazy from the stress, headaches and heartaches they cause. Plus the guilt from having those negative feelings and reactions from their own children, so it snowballs and yo-yos even.
mrbird 16y ago
One more I'd add: Pick a time after which you will not check your email. For me it's 10pm. Too many times I'd be winding down the day, getting ready for sleep, and decided (more like, was subconsciously compelled) to check my email one last time. Every so often, some nagging issue would come up that, in hindsight, definitely could have waited till the next morning, but once I started thinking about it, there was no way I could rest until it was resolved. This obviously cut into my sleep time (not good for the long term) and also often left me in an agitated state that made it harder to get good sleep. Maybe it's 6pm, maybe it's 2am, but I recommend drawing the line somewhere, so that you can preserve the quality of your downtime.
- jmahoney 16y ago
  I'd go further than that. Leave work at work. Don't check work email out of the office. Don't take work home: stay late if you must. This is harder to manage if "the office" is actually your home but it's important to make it work. You can't really help where your brain wanders in your downtime, but there's no need to encourage it by doing work in your downtime.
- mattmichielsen 16y ago
  I've also found that turning off all push notifications of emails to my phone helps me ignore emails until I actually get to them. I pick a few times per day to go through them in batches and immediately take care of anything I can do quickly, and star or archive the rest, depending on whether I need to follow up or not. I do my last check at about 9pm.
city41 16y ago
I ride my bicycle just about everywhere: to the office, grocery store, restaurants, everywhere. It's a great way to get exercise and doesn't cut into your schedule all that much, because due to traffic lights you can often get to where you are going on a bike only slightly slower than in a car. Also starting the day after my 7 mile commute is fantastic, my brain is rocking and ready.
- euccastro 16y ago
  Does your city have a bicycle trail, has only light traffic, or are you hyperventilating on car exhaust fumes? I never really got why would people cycle/jog on busy roads.
  - tremendo 16y ago
    Being knocked off my bicycle by a car door finally convinced me, after too many uncomfortably close encounters, that I was somehow invisible to drivers. Today I believe that for my well-being the risks of biking far outweigh any potential benefits.
    - pierrefar 16y ago
      1. You, the cyclist, need to be driving very defensively. Read the road and always assume you have not been seen and take action to do fix that. Here in the tiny streets of Cambridge, UK, I sometimes feel cycling in the middle of the street is the best option. BTW, an equally big risk to cyclists is pedestrians who, by sheer stupidity or collectively having death wishes, start crossing the road without looking. It's worse when it's a group. 2. Get some high visibility gear and get a helmet and pads. I also use two sets of lights: the reds at the back are placed one high (my back or helmet) and one low, and the front lights are angled differently to give me full coverage for a good distance. The cheapest and lightest way for visibility gear is the "jacket" type that you wear over your clothes.
      - arethuza 16y ago
        I used to commute by bicycle about 20 miles a day (total) from the East side of Edinburgh, through the middle of town and out to the West (to the Riccarton Campus) - I worked late a lot so I was often returning in the dark. Best thing I ever did was get an extremely powerful set of lights (Vistalite I think) - they were very expensive but I'm sure they saved my life on multiple occasions. I used to have one light angled so that it illuminated the road with the other pretty much shining into the faces of car drivers - probably not legal but at least I knew I could wiggle the handlebars to shine a light into a drivers face if they were about to do something that would cause a problem. Unfortunately, bright lights can't protect you from other road hazzards - kids throwing a brick at me being an example of what cyclists have to put up with.
BrandonM 16y ago
I'm having trouble putting this all together. Let's figure 9 hours at work, 1 hour of commute, 1.5 hours eating, 1.5 hours exercising, .75 hours meditating, and 7.5 hours sleeping. That leaves less than three hours for showering, changing clothes, and a little downtime. When do you do chores around the house, run errands, visit family, and hang out with friends?
- ckuehne 16y ago
  Crossfit never takes longer than 30 minutes. Some workouts can be as short as 3 minutes.
  - dschobel 16y ago
    ^^ this. if you're pressed for time, crossfit is amazing (well it's amazing anyway). my cf gym is full of professional people-- doctors, lawyers, and engineers and by looking at them you'd think they were gym rats.
  - thereddestruby 16y ago
    I second this one. You're really wasting your time if you're there for more than 45 minutes. Means you're resting too much between exercises. Quality over quantity when it comes to gym time. For example, do 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 burpees, and 20 jumping jacks. Repeat ten times with little rest between rounds. Then jump rope a 100 times. Should take you no more than twenty minutes. It's hard to get up from that one though.
- ciupicri 16y ago
  I think that 1.5 hours exercising is a bit too much. Most people tend to recommend at most 1 hour per day, including warm-up (so this means 30 extra minutes of sleep :-)).
  - rsanheim 16y ago
    I think you'll find a wide range of times works for folks, depending on what sort of routine and exercise you do and stick to. If you love road biking, you will probably spend more time exercising then someone who loves doing a lot of high intensity interval training and cross-fit style workouts, simply because of the nature of the workout. You can ride bike for 3 hours easy when you are in shape, but there is no way you can do intervals for more than 45 minutes unless you are nuts.
bufordtwain 16y ago
Getting out for a 10-15 minute walk can work wonders for body and mind. I try to do that in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon to break things up and re-energize.
sreitshamer 16y ago
I'd add that it's a good idea to take it easy because it's never going to be less work, as DHH suggested at Startup School http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY
keyle 16y ago
90 minutes gym sessions? That's ridiculous. 45 and you should be out of there! You're on the way to over train which will lead to negative results on your body. 45 max and you will feel so much more energized. Not to mention that there is no way a geek can keep up with 90 minutes of gym 3 or 4 times a week without loosing his mind and dropping the idea. Also dropping carbs is a very bad idea, reducing it is good. But dropping them in the long term is going to affect your bone structure, the muscles will eat themselves for energy and you might land some heavy calcium supplementation in 20 years. Also the fact that you're german/english does not explain a slow metabolism. Com'on. Have you seen europeans? Do they look fat to you? Generations of cold weather does not dictate your endomorphism. It's the food you eat, with bad habits and a high sugar intake that results in turning into a fat slob. Sure we all have genetic predispositions but it can be kept in the balance. Our bodies were never designed to eat what the american market has to offer.
- maxawaytoolong 16y ago
  Jack Lalanne does 2 hours a day and he is 95 years old. Short workouts are in vogue but hackers are so sedentary that 90 minutes seems like the minimum needed to offset 10 hours in a chair. I manage to do 45 min cardio + 45 min weights 3x per week, then 45 min cardio + 45min yoga or other stretching type thing 2x per week. Not a big deal IMO.
- al3x 16y ago
  Here's where I get 90 minutes: stretches, about 30 minutes on an elliptical, another 25 on an exercise bike, then weights, then crunches, then stretches. I mean 90 minutes for the entire gym-going process, not like 90 minutes of flat-out cardio or heavy-duty lifting. That would indeed be ridiculous for someone who isn't a professional athlete. Like I said, that routine works for me; it's what I need to feel like I got a good workout. But I also want to try other techniques. Part of the appeal of CrossFit is that you get a "better" workout in a shorter period of time. You can find sources that say dropping carbs is bad idea, and you can find sources that say dropping carbs is a great idea. Again: it's what works for me. I'll still eat some whole grains and other "good" carbs. If you noticed, the bit about the German/English heritage ended in a joke, suggesting that I was exaggerating a bit there. But since you bring it up: yes, I've seen plenty of portly English and German folks, and also some quite fit ones. Like you say, it's all about diet, and that's why I'm being careful about mine.
DTrejo 16y ago
And don't forget to use streak.ly for all those habits you want to do daily ;)
- colonelxc 16y ago
  "Streak.ly is coming soon." Maybe you should promote it after it launches.
  - DTrejo 16y ago
    Oh, it's not mine. But in any case, I think there's a special invite link: http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn
naner 16y ago
Just a small tip: don't stretch before strength training. You want the blood to remain in your muscles for the duration of your workout. Warm up by doing some cardio instead.
- forgot_password 16y ago
  whoa this seems a bit dangerous and flies in the face of what we get drilled into us since children about weightlifting. Do you have any authoritative source for this?
  - Devilboy 16y ago
    http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/flexibility/a/aa022102a.htm http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/flexibility/a/aa022102a.h...
  - naner 16y ago
    Well, this is a bit of a fools' errand. I went ahead and searched google and found support for any conceivable position on the whole stretching situation. Anyways, this is what I was taught: http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gardner/stretching.htm http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gard... For strength training, there’s evidence that stretching before a workout is counter-productive. Strength training requires muscles to contract tightly against a heavy weight, and loosening the muscle fibres by stretching them first reduces their ability to do this. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t warm your muscles up before strength training – just avoid stretching them first. If you want to include stretching in the same workout as strength training, it’s better to wait until after you’ve finished your weights work. I typically warm up on the elliptical machine for 5 minutes and then for each muscle group I'm doing that day I start with a set of low weight/high reps to warm it up. After the workout I do stretch my hamstrings because I sit on my ass all day.
  - billpaetzke 16y ago
    I have heard the same thing from other fitness nuts. I'm pretty into health and fitness myself. I'll try to find a reference. Cardio before and after to warm up and cool down your heart. No stretching before. Deep stretching after. Look at results from this search: http://www.google.com/search?q=dont+stretch+before+weightlifting http://www.google.com/search?q=dont+stretch+before+weightlif... Here's an example from : http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gardner/stretching.htm http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gard... "For strength training, there’s evidence that stretching before a workout is counter-productive. Strength training requires muscles to contract tightly against a heavy weight, and loosening the muscle fibres by stretching them first reduces their ability to do this. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t warm your muscles up before strength training – just avoid stretching them first. If you want to include stretching in the same workout as strength training, it’s better to wait until after you’ve finished your weights work." [Note: I did not refresh the page and see that user naner replied similarly. May I say: great minds think alike! Haha.]
ksmith 16y ago
"I’ve found that time management has little to do with “lifehacks” and how you manage your email inbox and more to do with prioritization, saying “no” to people, and clearly communicating the expectations you have for yourself and others." Well said. For those interested in similar ideas regarding diet and exercise, you might enjoy http://www.marksdailyapple.com http://www.marksdailyapple.com
dgallagher 16y ago
Exercise is basic necessary maintenance required by the human body. You either do it and have a happy/healthy body, or you don't. Eating healthy is just as important, separated into two categories: overall caloric intake, and nutritional content. Car analogies are a dime a dozen in computing, but they apply here as well. Not exercising is like changing the oil in your car every 10,000-15,000 miles, instead of every 3,000 - 6,000. Your car is still going to last years, but its lifespan will be shortened, and it's going to run poorly towards the end of it. The nice thing about a car is you can repair it, or buy a new one. Repairing a human is tricky, and you definitely can't buy a new one. I'm absolutely baffled by those who put their careers or money at a higher priority than their own physical health. You really want to be rich and famous with a crappy body? Is type 2 diabetes, along with likely amputations, blindness, and erectile dysfunction, your thing? Looking forward to clogged arteries and heart disease? What about stroke, wiping away your ability to control your own body, or even being able to think or speak? Etc, etc... I don't intend to be mean, but many American's simply don't prioritize their health high enough. People seem to have every excuse in the world not to do it, except for a good one. -------------------- True story. My brother is enrolled for his doctoral in physical therapy. He dissected cadavers (donated human corpses) during one of his classes. My family and I went out to visit, and he was able to let us look at one. My father, who is about 30 pounds overweight in his late-50's, hasn't really cared about his health. He eats too much high-saturated-fat ice cream, puts cream in his coffee, likes cookies with lots of butter in them, etc... I've been trying to get him to eat healthier and exercise for years to no avail. Well, my brother was having me hold/feel the heart from the cadaver (it was already cut out of the dissected body). I was squishing some of the arteries with gloves on, and my brother said "Try squishing this Coronary Artery. Sometimes it might be crunchy from heart disease." So I did, and WOW! It was ROCK SOLID! So much calcium and plaque had built up inside this persons heart that it completely clogged the artery. It was as if there was a pebble-sized rock inside of it. Of course, I forced my father to put some gloves on and feel it for himself. Well, that scared the SHIT out of him! These last few weeks since, he's made a decision to stay away from high-fat foods (and has been doing so - non-fat ice cream now, skim milk in coffee, etc...). He's also putting together an exercise room. It looks like he's in the right mindset now, which is a very good thing! Sometimes the dagger of death hanging over your head is the best motivator. :)
gms 16y ago
No mention of getting an adequate amount of sleep? Exercise makes me feel even worse if I'm not getting enough sleep.
araneae 16y ago
Why is HN so obsessed with exercise? I'm quite happy as a lazy slob. I ran track and x country in high school, but I didn't like exercise then and I still don't. I'm sure it would probably make me healthier, but it just isn't worth the discomfort to me. Stop making me look bad, guys.
- patio11 16y ago
  I have never liked exercise, and I have never liked dieting, but I had a rude wakeup call about the wages of "curry and a fried porkchop" four days a week plus a sedentary lifestyle a few years ago. My physician said that, at that rate, I would be lucky to make it to 30, despite the fact that I was skinny like a beanpole. So I started going to the gym. I despise actually being at the gym and exercising. But it makes me feel drastically better: I have more energy now, I get sick less, and my general comportment no longer suggests illness to friends and family. I even get more work done on days I go to the gym, since it refreshes my mental batteries and contributes more than a minute of marginal thinking time for every minute I spend there. But even if the energy/health/acuity benefits don't do it for you, take a look around you at the people who would miss you if you were gone, and go to the gym for them. Aside from quitting smoking (don't smoke, but quit if you do!) it is the cheapest way to buy extra time with your loved ones.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    If you where thin, why would you die before you where 30? I mean, heart attacks, etc are all correlated with fat.
    - _pius 16y ago
      I shouldn't have to say this, but correlation != causation.
    - scorpioxy 16y ago
      Not fat, clogged arteries. Skinny-looking people can have thinned arteries. This is mostly attributed to fats in your diet but also to your genes.
gokhan 16y ago
Since he mentioned Krav Maga: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1156838 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1156838
tlrobinson 16y ago
It amazes me how stress can have physical, not just mental, effects. At the peaks of the stressful times I would get these really weird vague aches and pains. I saw my doctor (in the valley) and when I told her I was founding a startup she told me these were very common symptoms among our kind... (granted my company was probably nowhere near as stressful as Twitter circa 2008-2009)
c00p3r 16y ago
Exercise (physical work) + diet (same organic food each day) + meditation + regime (the same routines each day) = monastery or village life in Asia. Why 174 up-votes for a turning back to the basics?
- c00p3r 16y ago
  Stupid fucking down voters, you never have seen a Nepaly mountaineering guide, who are going to claim an above six thousand meters peak twice a week just as a routine, or Tibetan yakmen and horsemen, who just going several thousand meters up and down with their caravan, but you're so fast in pushing a buttons. The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn from the crow. ^_^
sheena 16y ago
Radiolab's "Stress" episode (http://www.radiolab.org/2007/apr/09/ http://www.radiolab.org/2007/apr/09/) mentions rat studies in which experimenters made rats sick by subjecting them to extreme physical stressors (cold, treadmills, forcing them to swim for hours until exhaustion, etc.). Other rats merely had their food put out and taken away at the last minute a couple of times. Amazingly, the researchers could make the rats equally sick by simply frustrating them. I thought that was a powerful reminder of the real physical effects of stress.
guyute 16y ago
I go every day at lunch and workout for an hour. At first people viewed it as wasted time. Now about half my team leaves for an hour at some point during the day to workout. As soon as people feel low energy they leave. The change in their output has been remarkable. What we found was that people have low energy at some point and the change in energy level after causes them to be more productive and clear headed.
sleight42 16y ago
Great advice, although it could just as easily have been titled "Staying Healthy and Sane Under Emotional Stress".
mark_l_watson 16y ago
The advantage of Hacker News exposure: I bought the meditation package that Alex mentioned and the company that sells it just emailed me asking if I knew why they had just received a large number of orders in a very short time period. I let them know.
martingordon 16y ago
I've spent the past two weeks working on-site at a client where I walk about a half mile each way to/from the office and another half mile to/from dinner, which is a stark change from my normal "get in the car and drive to work" routine. Even this small change (which is paired with eating out and having a few beers each night) has allowed me to sleep less than I normally do, while staying just as alert throughout the day and craving caffeine less than usual. I'll be going back home this weekend and I need to figure out a way to push myself to do some walking even though I'm not forced to. Hopefully my experience these past two weeks will be enough.

254 points by ssclafani 16y ago

This could have easily been titled "Staying Healthy and Sane." Useful ideas all around. In particular, business on meditation is interesting to me. I do all my best thinking in the shower. I suspect this is because without meaning to be, I'm in a meditative state there. Every time I have a really hard problem to ponder, I find a shower has the power to jolt me in the direction of the solution. I'd like to find a way to harness this in a more convenient way that doesn't require soap, water or nudity, so I'm going to check out the NSR site Alex recommends.

troyk 16y ago
Try thinking about the issue before you go to sleep. This has worked great for me, often I'll awake to a keen sense of understanding what I was thinking of, although a few times it has resulted in keeping me up for hours frustrasted with neither sleep or understanding!
- danilocampos 16y ago
  Every time the challenge du jour pops into my head before sleep I just end up thinking about it for hours. And not sleeping. It's tough.
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    Me too. For a little while it feels productive and nice because I often have good ideas, but then after half an hour or so, I want my brain to shut up so I can sleep. A friend of mine told me she has a similar issue and has a special meditation that she does in bed to wind her brain down. I should email her, but if anyone has ways they deal with this issue, I'd love to hear them.
    - jlees 16y ago
      I absolutely do not think about stuff like that before I sleep - I try to spend at least an hour winding down with a book and peppermint tea or something similar. I do however think about tough issues when I'm half asleep in the morning, reaching for the snooze button. (Sometimes it's counterproductive, making me want to snooze more to make the world go away, but I reach some surprising insights here - and then crystallise them in the shower, of course!)
      - sirrocco 16y ago
        I too use the book trick :) so to speak . Just 30 minutes of reading some SF before I go to sleep helps a lot. I then tend to think about the characters in the book or I imagine being on another planet :) . It really helps when I do that.
    - danilocampos 16y ago
      I'd love to hear her advice if she gets back to you on this.
access_denied 16y ago
> I'd like to find a way to harness this in a more convenient way David Allen's Geting Things Done is basically about this. Though, to get it you should read the book carefully and not glance over it to extract some todo-list building tips like obviously most authors of those shoddy 'productivity' blogs have done. The 'natural planning model' as described in the book, combined with a 'complete inventory of your work' updated regularly as described in the book, gives you essentially that.

Mongoose 16y ago

One tip I'd add to the diet section is to drink enough water. I find that always having cold water at arm's reach helps keep my mind fresh and alert. Also, making the switch from coffee to tea can have innumerable benefits to one's energy level and overall health.

phjohnst 16y ago
A thousand times yes. Having water at hand and always sipping is a really great way to tame hunger and oral fixations, and is great for your body to be flushing itself out. I find that tea doesn't give me as much of a high as coffee, but it lasts longer without any come-down. Awesome.
- bentlegen 16y ago
  Tea puts me to sleep. I can drink the most caffeinated tea on the market, and I'll be nodding off in an hour. It's a real pain because I have difficulty digesting coffee, and I'm looking for alternatives. Appreciate any suggestions.
  - jamesk2 16y ago
    Try some Yerba Mate. Tea is made from the roots of that plant and has enough caffeine to give you a nice kick when you need it.
  - gnubardt 16y ago
    have you tried yerba mate?
  - roqetman 16y ago
    Try a true english tea like PG Tips - there's just no way you'll fall asleep after drinking a cup of that; the teabag is about 60% bigger than the average american teabag (one of those strange things is that teabags in america are smaller than the english version (same brand)).
  - Johngibb 16y ago

phjohnst 16y ago

This is a great article, very useful ideas. I think that the last point he makes is probably the most valuable and one that I only just learned, that is to not worry if you miss a workout or two, or if you have that cake on the weekend every once in a while. I always used to set myself a very strict plan for whatever I was trying to do, and inevitably whenever I fell off I would feel like I failed and wouldn't be able to get back to it. I've recently started taking a more relaxed approach to my 'goals' and I feel like I've made much more progress, as long as the trend is in the right direction you're good to go.

jlees 16y ago

A lot of this applies to working for yourself, or for a big company. Startups exaggerate the extremes of stress and crunch, but I pretty much do all these things (and have done for the last 18 months or so, so ~8 months of BigCo and ~10 months of CEO) and they work equally well in both contexts. As long as you're working somewhere that you can go and take a walk when your wheels are spinning. Things that I've found helpful: Vegetarian diet (currently trying vegan out to break my fro-yo addiction), yoga, running with a goal in mind, running without a goal in mind, massages, a long commute without a laptop. All except the former help me let my thoughts just drift and it's surprising what pops out.

al3x 16y ago
I probably should have put massage in there. I don't get massages regularly, but man do I ever feel better when I do. Good suggestion.
- jfb 16y ago
  When it all gets to be too much, I like to go the Imperial Day Spa (on Geary & Fillmore) and just soak for a while. Then, the acupressure. Highly recommended.

jkincaid 16y ago

One other thing that has helped me keep my sanity: wash and fold laundry service. You take your dirty laundry, put it in a bag, and they'll clean and fold it for a modest fee (the place around the corner from me is around $1.10 a pound). In urban areas you can find services that will pickup and deliver. It's a luxury, but it isn't that expensive (especially if you typically rely on coin-op laundromats anyway) and it's one less thing to worry about.

cperciva 16y ago
the place around the corner from me is around $1.10 a pound The pricing is based on weight? It seems to me that the time it takes to fold a pound of clothing varies dramatically based on the type of clothing...
- jlees 16y ago
  But is it quicker to charge every customer the same rate per lb of laundry than to spend time analysing the laundry or ask your customers to pre-sort? I'd say yes.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
iseff 16y ago
Funny, for me it's the opposite. I've taken to kind of _enjoying_ folding laundry since I started working on AppStoreHQ. It's the mindless release that I need every once in a while.
mattmichielsen 16y ago
I do laundry about once a week, and it takes about 2 minutes to load and start the washer, and after an hour (or whenever you get back to it) another 2 minutes to load and start the dryer. After that, you can just get clean clothes out of the dryer instead of dresser drawers. My girlfriend doesn't like this life-optimization.

dstnbrkr 16y ago

Been shopping for a martial arts school for the exact same reason - seems like a great way to add variety to what would otherwise become a dull workout routine.

mminolt 16y ago

You are so right. I have been in the space for 15 years. Started my career at Netscape and kept going to smaller and more edgy startups since. The most stressful episodes happened at dead-in-the-water memories like RealNames and OpenHarbor. Let's put it this way though, I have learned and I am proud to say that I am now a sustainable contributor. I can keep going for a long time but there will always be something crazy about working in any entrepreneurial setting that is both my engine and a best that has to be tamed or else...

chaosmachine 16y ago

"Taking in a brainy podcast at the gym combats that feeling." Similarly, I find watching TED videos while lifting weights (at home) is a nice combination.

portman 16y ago

For me, spending time with my kids (ages: 0, 2, 4) produces a similar results as exercise and meditation do for Alex: - "combats stress" - "always feel calmer than when I started" - "feel like I’ve got my head screwed on straight" - "makes my work time more productive" YMMV, but this is what works for me.

mkramlich 16y ago
When they hit 2/4/6 or 4/6/8 I'll be curious if you'll say the same thing. :) I know there are many parents who, after having to put up with kids and their behavior/mindsets long enough, without break, feel like they are starting to go crazy from the stress, headaches and heartaches they cause. Plus the guilt from having those negative feelings and reactions from their own children, so it snowballs and yo-yos even.

mrbird 16y ago

One more I'd add: Pick a time after which you will not check your email. For me it's 10pm. Too many times I'd be winding down the day, getting ready for sleep, and decided (more like, was subconsciously compelled) to check my email one last time. Every so often, some nagging issue would come up that, in hindsight, definitely could have waited till the next morning, but once I started thinking about it, there was no way I could rest until it was resolved. This obviously cut into my sleep time (not good for the long term) and also often left me in an agitated state that made it harder to get good sleep. Maybe it's 6pm, maybe it's 2am, but I recommend drawing the line somewhere, so that you can preserve the quality of your downtime.

jmahoney 16y ago
I'd go further than that. Leave work at work. Don't check work email out of the office. Don't take work home: stay late if you must. This is harder to manage if "the office" is actually your home but it's important to make it work. You can't really help where your brain wanders in your downtime, but there's no need to encourage it by doing work in your downtime.
mattmichielsen 16y ago
I've also found that turning off all push notifications of emails to my phone helps me ignore emails until I actually get to them. I pick a few times per day to go through them in batches and immediately take care of anything I can do quickly, and star or archive the rest, depending on whether I need to follow up or not. I do my last check at about 9pm.

city41 16y ago

I ride my bicycle just about everywhere: to the office, grocery store, restaurants, everywhere. It's a great way to get exercise and doesn't cut into your schedule all that much, because due to traffic lights you can often get to where you are going on a bike only slightly slower than in a car. Also starting the day after my 7 mile commute is fantastic, my brain is rocking and ready.

euccastro 16y ago
Does your city have a bicycle trail, has only light traffic, or are you hyperventilating on car exhaust fumes? I never really got why would people cycle/jog on busy roads.
- tremendo 16y ago
  Being knocked off my bicycle by a car door finally convinced me, after too many uncomfortably close encounters, that I was somehow invisible to drivers. Today I believe that for my well-being the risks of biking far outweigh any potential benefits.
  - pierrefar 16y ago
    1. You, the cyclist, need to be driving very defensively. Read the road and always assume you have not been seen and take action to do fix that. Here in the tiny streets of Cambridge, UK, I sometimes feel cycling in the middle of the street is the best option. BTW, an equally big risk to cyclists is pedestrians who, by sheer stupidity or collectively having death wishes, start crossing the road without looking. It's worse when it's a group. 2. Get some high visibility gear and get a helmet and pads. I also use two sets of lights: the reds at the back are placed one high (my back or helmet) and one low, and the front lights are angled differently to give me full coverage for a good distance. The cheapest and lightest way for visibility gear is the "jacket" type that you wear over your clothes.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      I used to commute by bicycle about 20 miles a day (total) from the East side of Edinburgh, through the middle of town and out to the West (to the Riccarton Campus) - I worked late a lot so I was often returning in the dark. Best thing I ever did was get an extremely powerful set of lights (Vistalite I think) - they were very expensive but I'm sure they saved my life on multiple occasions. I used to have one light angled so that it illuminated the road with the other pretty much shining into the faces of car drivers - probably not legal but at least I knew I could wiggle the handlebars to shine a light into a drivers face if they were about to do something that would cause a problem. Unfortunately, bright lights can't protect you from other road hazzards - kids throwing a brick at me being an example of what cyclists have to put up with.

BrandonM 16y ago

I'm having trouble putting this all together. Let's figure 9 hours at work, 1 hour of commute, 1.5 hours eating, 1.5 hours exercising, .75 hours meditating, and 7.5 hours sleeping. That leaves less than three hours for showering, changing clothes, and a little downtime. When do you do chores around the house, run errands, visit family, and hang out with friends?

ckuehne 16y ago
Crossfit never takes longer than 30 minutes. Some workouts can be as short as 3 minutes.
- dschobel 16y ago
  ^^ this. if you're pressed for time, crossfit is amazing (well it's amazing anyway). my cf gym is full of professional people-- doctors, lawyers, and engineers and by looking at them you'd think they were gym rats.
- thereddestruby 16y ago
  I second this one. You're really wasting your time if you're there for more than 45 minutes. Means you're resting too much between exercises. Quality over quantity when it comes to gym time. For example, do 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 burpees, and 20 jumping jacks. Repeat ten times with little rest between rounds. Then jump rope a 100 times. Should take you no more than twenty minutes. It's hard to get up from that one though.
ciupicri 16y ago
I think that 1.5 hours exercising is a bit too much. Most people tend to recommend at most 1 hour per day, including warm-up (so this means 30 extra minutes of sleep :-)).
- rsanheim 16y ago
  I think you'll find a wide range of times works for folks, depending on what sort of routine and exercise you do and stick to. If you love road biking, you will probably spend more time exercising then someone who loves doing a lot of high intensity interval training and cross-fit style workouts, simply because of the nature of the workout. You can ride bike for 3 hours easy when you are in shape, but there is no way you can do intervals for more than 45 minutes unless you are nuts.

bufordtwain 16y ago

Getting out for a 10-15 minute walk can work wonders for body and mind. I try to do that in the mid-morning and mid-afternoon to break things up and re-energize.

sreitshamer 16y ago

I'd add that it's a good idea to take it easy because it's never going to be less work, as DHH suggested at Startup School http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

keyle 16y ago

90 minutes gym sessions? That's ridiculous. 45 and you should be out of there! You're on the way to over train which will lead to negative results on your body. 45 max and you will feel so much more energized. Not to mention that there is no way a geek can keep up with 90 minutes of gym 3 or 4 times a week without loosing his mind and dropping the idea. Also dropping carbs is a very bad idea, reducing it is good. But dropping them in the long term is going to affect your bone structure, the muscles will eat themselves for energy and you might land some heavy calcium supplementation in 20 years. Also the fact that you're german/english does not explain a slow metabolism. Com'on. Have you seen europeans? Do they look fat to you? Generations of cold weather does not dictate your endomorphism. It's the food you eat, with bad habits and a high sugar intake that results in turning into a fat slob. Sure we all have genetic predispositions but it can be kept in the balance. Our bodies were never designed to eat what the american market has to offer.

maxawaytoolong 16y ago
Jack Lalanne does 2 hours a day and he is 95 years old. Short workouts are in vogue but hackers are so sedentary that 90 minutes seems like the minimum needed to offset 10 hours in a chair. I manage to do 45 min cardio + 45 min weights 3x per week, then 45 min cardio + 45min yoga or other stretching type thing 2x per week. Not a big deal IMO.
al3x 16y ago
Here's where I get 90 minutes: stretches, about 30 minutes on an elliptical, another 25 on an exercise bike, then weights, then crunches, then stretches. I mean 90 minutes for the entire gym-going process, not like 90 minutes of flat-out cardio or heavy-duty lifting. That would indeed be ridiculous for someone who isn't a professional athlete. Like I said, that routine works for me; it's what I need to feel like I got a good workout. But I also want to try other techniques. Part of the appeal of CrossFit is that you get a "better" workout in a shorter period of time. You can find sources that say dropping carbs is bad idea, and you can find sources that say dropping carbs is a great idea. Again: it's what works for me. I'll still eat some whole grains and other "good" carbs. If you noticed, the bit about the German/English heritage ended in a joke, suggesting that I was exaggerating a bit there. But since you bring it up: yes, I've seen plenty of portly English and German folks, and also some quite fit ones. Like you say, it's all about diet, and that's why I'm being careful about mine.

DTrejo 16y ago

And don't forget to use streak.ly for all those habits you want to do daily ;)

colonelxc 16y ago
"Streak.ly is coming soon." Maybe you should promote it after it launches.
- DTrejo 16y ago
  Oh, it's not mine. But in any case, I think there's a special invite link: http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn http://streak.ly/auth/twitter/start?secret=showhn

naner 16y ago

Just a small tip: don't stretch before strength training. You want the blood to remain in your muscles for the duration of your workout. Warm up by doing some cardio instead.

forgot_password 16y ago
whoa this seems a bit dangerous and flies in the face of what we get drilled into us since children about weightlifting. Do you have any authoritative source for this?
- Devilboy 16y ago
  http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/flexibility/a/aa022102a.htm http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/flexibility/a/aa022102a.h...
- naner 16y ago
  Well, this is a bit of a fools' errand. I went ahead and searched google and found support for any conceivable position on the whole stretching situation. Anyways, this is what I was taught: http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gardner/stretching.htm http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gard... For strength training, there’s evidence that stretching before a workout is counter-productive. Strength training requires muscles to contract tightly against a heavy weight, and loosening the muscle fibres by stretching them first reduces their ability to do this. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t warm your muscles up before strength training – just avoid stretching them first. If you want to include stretching in the same workout as strength training, it’s better to wait until after you’ve finished your weights work. I typically warm up on the elliptical machine for 5 minutes and then for each muscle group I'm doing that day I start with a set of low weight/high reps to warm it up. After the workout I do stretch my hamstrings because I sit on my ass all day.
- billpaetzke 16y ago
  I have heard the same thing from other fitness nuts. I'm pretty into health and fitness myself. I'll try to find a reference. Cardio before and after to warm up and cool down your heart. No stretching before. Deep stretching after. Look at results from this search: http://www.google.com/search?q=dont+stretch+before+weightlifting http://www.google.com/search?q=dont+stretch+before+weightlif... Here's an example from : http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gardner/stretching.htm http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gard... "For strength training, there’s evidence that stretching before a workout is counter-productive. Strength training requires muscles to contract tightly against a heavy weight, and loosening the muscle fibres by stretching them first reduces their ability to do this. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t warm your muscles up before strength training – just avoid stretching them first. If you want to include stretching in the same workout as strength training, it’s better to wait until after you’ve finished your weights work." [Note: I did not refresh the page and see that user naner replied similarly. May I say: great minds think alike! Haha.]

ksmith 16y ago

"I’ve found that time management has little to do with “lifehacks” and how you manage your email inbox and more to do with prioritization, saying “no” to people, and clearly communicating the expectations you have for yourself and others." Well said. For those interested in similar ideas regarding diet and exercise, you might enjoy http://www.marksdailyapple.com http://www.marksdailyapple.com

dgallagher 16y ago

Exercise is basic necessary maintenance required by the human body. You either do it and have a happy/healthy body, or you don't. Eating healthy is just as important, separated into two categories: overall caloric intake, and nutritional content. Car analogies are a dime a dozen in computing, but they apply here as well. Not exercising is like changing the oil in your car every 10,000-15,000 miles, instead of every 3,000 - 6,000. Your car is still going to last years, but its lifespan will be shortened, and it's going to run poorly towards the end of it. The nice thing about a car is you can repair it, or buy a new one. Repairing a human is tricky, and you definitely can't buy a new one. I'm absolutely baffled by those who put their careers or money at a higher priority than their own physical health. You really want to be rich and famous with a crappy body? Is type 2 diabetes, along with likely amputations, blindness, and erectile dysfunction, your thing? Looking forward to clogged arteries and heart disease? What about stroke, wiping away your ability to control your own body, or even being able to think or speak? Etc, etc... I don't intend to be mean, but many American's simply don't prioritize their health high enough. People seem to have every excuse in the world not to do it, except for a good one. -------------------- True story. My brother is enrolled for his doctoral in physical therapy. He dissected cadavers (donated human corpses) during one of his classes. My family and I went out to visit, and he was able to let us look at one. My father, who is about 30 pounds overweight in his late-50's, hasn't really cared about his health. He eats too much high-saturated-fat ice cream, puts cream in his coffee, likes cookies with lots of butter in them, etc... I've been trying to get him to eat healthier and exercise for years to no avail. Well, my brother was having me hold/feel the heart from the cadaver (it was already cut out of the dissected body). I was squishing some of the arteries with gloves on, and my brother said "Try squishing this Coronary Artery. Sometimes it might be crunchy from heart disease." So I did, and WOW! It was ROCK SOLID! So much calcium and plaque had built up inside this persons heart that it completely clogged the artery. It was as if there was a pebble-sized rock inside of it. Of course, I forced my father to put some gloves on and feel it for himself. Well, that scared the SHIT out of him! These last few weeks since, he's made a decision to stay away from high-fat foods (and has been doing so - non-fat ice cream now, skim milk in coffee, etc...). He's also putting together an exercise room. It looks like he's in the right mindset now, which is a very good thing! Sometimes the dagger of death hanging over your head is the best motivator. :)

gms 16y ago

No mention of getting an adequate amount of sleep? Exercise makes me feel even worse if I'm not getting enough sleep.

araneae 16y ago

Why is HN so obsessed with exercise? I'm quite happy as a lazy slob. I ran track and x country in high school, but I didn't like exercise then and I still don't. I'm sure it would probably make me healthier, but it just isn't worth the discomfort to me. Stop making me look bad, guys.

patio11 16y ago
I have never liked exercise, and I have never liked dieting, but I had a rude wakeup call about the wages of "curry and a fried porkchop" four days a week plus a sedentary lifestyle a few years ago. My physician said that, at that rate, I would be lucky to make it to 30, despite the fact that I was skinny like a beanpole. So I started going to the gym. I despise actually being at the gym and exercising. But it makes me feel drastically better: I have more energy now, I get sick less, and my general comportment no longer suggests illness to friends and family. I even get more work done on days I go to the gym, since it refreshes my mental batteries and contributes more than a minute of marginal thinking time for every minute I spend there. But even if the energy/health/acuity benefits don't do it for you, take a look around you at the people who would miss you if you were gone, and go to the gym for them. Aside from quitting smoking (don't smoke, but quit if you do!) it is the cheapest way to buy extra time with your loved ones.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  If you where thin, why would you die before you where 30? I mean, heart attacks, etc are all correlated with fat.
  - _pius 16y ago
    I shouldn't have to say this, but correlation != causation.
  - scorpioxy 16y ago
    Not fat, clogged arteries. Skinny-looking people can have thinned arteries. This is mostly attributed to fats in your diet but also to your genes.

gokhan 16y ago

Since he mentioned Krav Maga: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1156838 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1156838

tlrobinson 16y ago

It amazes me how stress can have physical, not just mental, effects. At the peaks of the stressful times I would get these really weird vague aches and pains. I saw my doctor (in the valley) and when I told her I was founding a startup she told me these were very common symptoms among our kind... (granted my company was probably nowhere near as stressful as Twitter circa 2008-2009)

c00p3r 16y ago

Exercise (physical work) + diet (same organic food each day) + meditation + regime (the same routines each day) = monastery or village life in Asia. Why 174 up-votes for a turning back to the basics?

c00p3r 16y ago
Stupid fucking down voters, you never have seen a Nepaly mountaineering guide, who are going to claim an above six thousand meters peak twice a week just as a routine, or Tibetan yakmen and horsemen, who just going several thousand meters up and down with their caravan, but you're so fast in pushing a buttons. The eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn from the crow. ^_^

sheena 16y ago

Radiolab's "Stress" episode (http://www.radiolab.org/2007/apr/09/ http://www.radiolab.org/2007/apr/09/) mentions rat studies in which experimenters made rats sick by subjecting them to extreme physical stressors (cold, treadmills, forcing them to swim for hours until exhaustion, etc.). Other rats merely had their food put out and taken away at the last minute a couple of times. Amazingly, the researchers could make the rats equally sick by simply frustrating them. I thought that was a powerful reminder of the real physical effects of stress.

guyute 16y ago

I go every day at lunch and workout for an hour. At first people viewed it as wasted time. Now about half my team leaves for an hour at some point during the day to workout. As soon as people feel low energy they leave. The change in their output has been remarkable. What we found was that people have low energy at some point and the change in energy level after causes them to be more productive and clear headed.

sleight42 16y ago

Great advice, although it could just as easily have been titled "Staying Healthy and Sane Under Emotional Stress".

mark_l_watson 16y ago

The advantage of Hacker News exposure: I bought the meditation package that Alex mentioned and the company that sells it just emailed me asking if I knew why they had just received a large number of orders in a very short time period. I let them know.

martingordon 16y ago

I've spent the past two weeks working on-site at a client where I walk about a half mile each way to/from the office and another half mile to/from dinner, which is a stark change from my normal "get in the car and drive to work" routine. Even this small change (which is paired with eating out and having a few beers each night) has allowed me to sleep less than I normally do, while staying just as alert throughout the day and craving caffeine less than usual. I'll be going back home this weekend and I need to figure out a way to push myself to do some walking even though I'm not forced to. Hopefully my experience these past two weeks will be enough.