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1. Start getting help for my depression and other mental health related issues. I've been dealing with depression for years now, been officially diagnosed about

1. Start getting help for my depression and other mental health related issues. I've been dealing with depression for years now, been officially diagnosed about two or three years ago. I've had a few sessions with a therapist last year but I've broke off all contact with them since. I also have another mental problem which keeps me from eating 90% of food, which makes social gatherings in restaurants etc. a pain. 2. Start exercising more. I've bought myself some dumbbells earlier this year, and I've used them less than I'd like to admit. I wanna gain some strength to protect myself and other people from others, as well as have the strength to help people with moving etc. since i had to help with that a few times this year. 3. Get back into programming as a hobby. I'm slowly starting to regret turning my hobby into my job. I love programming, but when i get home from work i have no energy nor enthusiasm left to touch any of my personal projects. I'd love to add a bunch of planned features to my website which has about 1.4k unique users a day on average, but i need to get my motivation back first. 4. Contribute more to open source. This year I've made a whooping 4 pull requests to open source projects. Half of them one-liners. I've been part of this community for a while now and i feel the need to return something to it. 5. Do more volunteer work. I've donated to a lot of charities this year, but there's only so much money i have left at the end of the month. I have a lot more free time than money, so I plan on spending some of my afternoons a bit different.

lukewrites 8y ago
> 2. Start exercising more. Here's what worked for me: 1. Accept that 1 > 0. If I could only make it to the gym for 10 minutes on the bike, great! 10 minutes of working out is better than zero minutes! It's not about doing your _ideal_ workout, it's about _doing any sort of workout_. 2. Optimize for time & comfort. I don't mean that your workouts should be easy, they should challenge you. However, I realized that I was wasting lots of time planning/reading/worrying about devising the "perfect" workout routine. This was eating up spare time. So, I went with the simplest routine that seemed like it would be good for me: alternating between endurance & HIIT workouts. I got an interval training app for my phone & apple watch, and used it on interval days, just used the apple watch's workout app for endurance days. Simple and totally doable. Now that I can't go to a gym, I'm alternating between doing 30 min runs and HIIT runs or just HIIT burpees in the garage. 3. Pay for expertise. This goes to my point above, but I paid for a personal trainer to show me how to do a kettlebell workout. We just met a few times, it didn't cost much, and it was useful. When I think about the time and stress I saved myself by just learning from the trainer, the expenditure ($30/30 min I think?) was completely worth it. Wound up not sticking with kettlebells (keep meaning to pick them back up...should just pay a trainer again), but that's OK. Good luck. Doing regular exercise does wonder for mental health, too. Just accept that the effects are cumulative :).
- paulddraper 8y ago
  #2 relates to choosing exercise type. Running, cycling, weightlifting, calisthenics, swimming, dance, team sports, yoga, etc. There's some theoretically "optimal" thing there, but the real optimal thing is the one that you'll do.

lukewrites 8y ago

> 2. Start exercising more. Here's what worked for me: 1. Accept that 1 > 0. If I could only make it to the gym for 10 minutes on the bike, great! 10 minutes of working out is better than zero minutes! It's not about doing your _ideal_ workout, it's about _doing any sort of workout_. 2. Optimize for time & comfort. I don't mean that your workouts should be easy, they should challenge you. However, I realized that I was wasting lots of time planning/reading/worrying about devising the "perfect" workout routine. This was eating up spare time. So, I went with the simplest routine that seemed like it would be good for me: alternating between endurance & HIIT workouts. I got an interval training app for my phone & apple watch, and used it on interval days, just used the apple watch's workout app for endurance days. Simple and totally doable. Now that I can't go to a gym, I'm alternating between doing 30 min runs and HIIT runs or just HIIT burpees in the garage. 3. Pay for expertise. This goes to my point above, but I paid for a personal trainer to show me how to do a kettlebell workout. We just met a few times, it didn't cost much, and it was useful. When I think about the time and stress I saved myself by just learning from the trainer, the expenditure ($30/30 min I think?) was completely worth it. Wound up not sticking with kettlebells (keep meaning to pick them back up...should just pay a trainer again), but that's OK. Good luck. Doing regular exercise does wonder for mental health, too. Just accept that the effects are cumulative :).

paulddraper 8y ago
#2 relates to choosing exercise type. Running, cycling, weightlifting, calisthenics, swimming, dance, team sports, yoga, etc. There's some theoretically "optimal" thing there, but the real optimal thing is the one that you'll do.