One of the biggest threats to wellness...

Reading time: approx 7 minutes without podcast accompaniment

Here is the audio: reading while listening to the audio helps with focus and comprehension. I uploaded it as a youtube video so you could adjust the speed to your liking.

Nowadays convenience and ease are everywhere.

Amazon allows things to be here either tomorrow or within a few days.

BBLs allow women to have “gym-attained” physiques in a few hours.

And AI allows people to create art, youtube scripts, and interior design models that would have taken a human hours, if not days to complete.

One could argue that the evolution of human intellect is what has led to this increase in ease and convenience.

Although I believe this to be true, I also believe that overconsuming these types of technologies is one of the biggest threats to human creativity and wellness.

Why is this important?

1. Comfort leads to stagnation and stagnation reverses your growth as true “stagnation” doesn’t exist. You’re either growing or shrinking.

2. Choosing ease can lead to some scary health ramifications.

3. Excess frequently leads to chaos.

And recently I’ve started to see this unfold in my own life.

I have always struggled with focus and organization.

To remedy this, I download every focus app and tried everything from bullet journaling to Notion to improve my organizational skills.

I was adding a lot to my calendar and my organizational toolbox but still burning myself out.

I also found myself increasingly choosing the path of less resistance.

Which isn’t bad if you’re not sacrificing quality, your wellness, relationships etc.

I relied on my calendar to remind me of my family members’ birthdays.

I was spending hours at my desk without moving.

I was sending texts to loved ones instead of calling.

All because these things were more “convenient”.

Sitting = no fatigue from standing at my desk.

Texting = more frequent communication without dealing with the discomfort of empty space or tense disagreements.

Relying on the calendar = no necessity to remember appointments and events of varying importance.

As someone with 19 nieces and nephews I think using a calendar as a tool is fine, but relying on it so heavily means that when I miss notifications…I miss very important things like birthdays.

Adding more things to your life for the sake of efficiency and ease doesn’t make any sense.

Nor does avoiding temporary difficulty and discomfort for a more enriching life.

I would argue that minimizing the things in your life and embracing discomfort are the things that make your life feel full.

And time and time again, when I’ve stretched my brain to actually remember birthdays or do the hard thing, it’s paid off.

Now, how can we actually embrace discomfort and detachment without going full-blown minimalist?

 ~if this is your jam, I love it for you but I personally enjoy having more than one utensil per person in my house ~

How can we have more mental real estate, longer healthspans, and more focus?

Let’s talk about it

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I absolutely love this quote because it emphasizes the importance of being a long-game thinker.

A common trait amongst nearly every successful person regardless of their occupation, lifestyle, and background.

It’s easy to think in days, but what about decades?

As humans, we’re essentially programmed to choose the less difficult option, but nowadays that comes at a cost.

Let’s take sitting or being sedentary for example.

There are 3 studies I found particularly interesting.

In the 2018 PAGAC Scientific report, data revealed that sitting for long periods doesn't only increase your risk of obesity, but it may also increase the risk of heart disease, cardiovascular disease-related deaths, and type II diabetes.

In another study performed in Iran, the researchers surveyed nearly 450 office workers.

Are you feeling fatigued at work or unsatisfied with your job? Their results suggest that excessive sitting could be the culprit.

This study explained that sitting may also be associated with lower job satisfaction and physical discomfort in areas like your shoulders, lower back, thighs, and knees.

And as we know, muscular imbalances cause not only pain but often lead to injury as well.

However, for those of us with work-from-home jobs or office jobs, exciting research has suggested an easy and time-efficient remedy: simply getting up every 30 minutes and walking around for about 3-5 minutes.

A study in the American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism revealed that a few jumping jacks/squats, climbing some stairs, or taking as little as 15 steps every 30 minutes during the workday may help stabilize our blood sugar.

This small routine may also increase our levels of HDL, the good cholesterol, without causing any significant disruptions to our workflow.

Now I want you to imagine two paths.

On path 1, you work about a total of 6-7 hours a day, without many breaks, for 10 years.

Now on path 2, for those 10 years, you take these short breaks every 30 minutes.

Will path 2 be slightly more inconvenient? Yes.

Will you have to move when you don’t feel like it ? Yes.

But imagine how much better health you’d be in.

And how much more time you may have with your family because of it.

Think in years and decades, not in days.