The Comfort Crisis

The Comfort Crisis

Author

Michael Easter

Year
2021
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Review

I’m guilty of avoiding discomfort. I’ve created an environment at home that’s so controlled I can feel it making me more fragile. I read the book because the title resonated with me. It wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I won’t be recommending it to others. The author told the story of the comfort crisis and (how to snap out of it) interlaced with tales from an Alaskan hunting trip. Sadly I didn’t find it all that relatable or interesting - although there was plenty of food for thought and interesting references.

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Key Takeaways

The 20% that gave me 80% of the value.

  • We rarely step outside our comfort zones and feel the sensation of discomfort. We lack struggle. We’re never bored.
  • Over time we lower our threshold for what we consider a problem. We end up with the same number of troubles. What’s comfortable is an ever increasing moving target
  • We evolved to seek comfort. In a hostile world that keeps you a live. In a comfortable world it limits your potential.
  • We need to get uncomfortable and ditch the comfort blanket and learn new limits.
  • Misogi is doing something so hard once a year → that it has an impact on the other 364 days. An emotional, spiritual, and psychological challenge that masquerades as a physical challenge
    • Rule 1: it has to be really fucking hard. Pitch it so you have a 50% chance of success if you do everything right.
    • Rule 2: you can’t die
  • Misogi should also be adventurous, have a clear goal and be quirky or uncommon.
  • People who face some adversity report better psychological well-being. Facing challenges makes people feel more robust and resilient
  • These challenges are beneficial for obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, depression, and anxiety
  • Only you are watching. Are you important enough to see it through?

Other takeaways of note

  • Silence is more calming than most products that claim to be relaxing
  • Exposure to nature drops blood pressure, heart rate and stress
  • Beware of eating for reasons beyond hunger (eating for dopamine and not for fuel (comfort food and stress eating))
  • Track what you eat. Close the gap between what you think you eat and what you eat.
  • Stress is inevitable - you need to change the response
  • Eat foods if medium energy density
  • Fast occasionally
  • Connect with the concept of impermanence. Think of death 3 times a day.
  • Exercise-induced fatigue is a psychological state (not a good indicator of your physical limit)
  • Breath rhythmically to take your mind of exercise. Focus only on the breath
  • Exercise often performs better than the best medications for treating issues
  • Put yourself through a big challenge and you’ll be impossible to rattle - and you’ll be grateful for the little things, and become more aware of time passing
  • Rucking is strength and cardio in one. Causes 6x less injuries than running. Use weight as a handicap and make rucking social
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Deep Summary

Longer form notes, typically condensed, reworded and de-duplicated.

We rarely step outside our comfort zones and feel the sensation of discomfort

  • We lack struggle. Hunger, cold, pain, exhaustion, stress.
  • Most stress is ‘first-world stress’.
  • We live in a state of habitual motion and meaningless chatter.
  • Boredom is indeed dead.

Problem creep has led to a comfort crisis

As we experience fewer problems, we don’t become more satisfied. We just lower our threshold for what we consider a problem. We end up with the same number of troubles.
As the threatening faces became rare, the study participants began to perceive neutral faces as threatening.
As people make all these relative judgments…. they become less and less satisfied than they used to be with the same thin
  • This effect is called ‘prevalence-induced concept change’
  • Humans adjust their expectations. What’s comfortable is an ever increasing moving target

We are sheltered, indulgent and under-challenged.

  • We evolved to seek comfort and reduce effort (safety, shelter, warmth, food)
  • In a hostile world that keeps you a live. In a comfortable world it limits your potential.
  • Too many easy options (comfort food, smoking, drinking, drugs, TV, social apps)
  • There are side effects of our comfort: physical and mental health problems
  • Life span is up. Health span is down.
  • We have no idea of our limits

We need to make a choice

  • Do nothing (continue with the numbing lifestyle)
  • Or get uncomfortable (ditch the comfort blanket)
    • Embrace the discomfort of hard change
    • Learn new limits
What are you mentally and spiritually willing to put yourself through to be a better human?

Misogi = Once a year do something so hard that it has an impact on the other 364 days

  • Misogi Rule 1: it has to be really fucking hard
    • Pitch it so you have a 50% chance of success if you do everything right
    • Get to your limit - push past it
  • Misogi Rule 2: you can’t die
  • Misogi should be…
    • Challenging
    • Adventurous
    • Done once or twice a year
    • Difficult
    • Unstructured
    • Have a clear goal
    • Quirky, creative, uncommon (incomparable to other people’s challenges)
  • The newness of the situations and training force you into presence and focus
  • Evolutionary brains are wired to overestimate the consequences of failure
    • Unhelpful in a comfortable environments, but helpful if you’re on a Misogi with a clear goal
  • Misogi is an emotional, spiritual, and psychological challenge that masquerades as a physical challenge

Experiencing the discomforts of our early ancestors (long hunts) through Misogi unlocks physical, mental and spiritual benefits

  • Toughening: people who face some adversity report better psychological well-being. Facing challenges makes people feel more robust and resilient
    • pain feels less, people able to deal with stressful situations better
  • These challenges are beneficial for obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes, depression, and anxiety
  • They are good for entering flow state - where action and awareness merge. Sensations like pain or hunger, sense of ego and self all fade. Must have a clear goal and must be challenging.
  • They require you to get comfortable with solitary discomfort (run, ride or swim)
    • fighting biological impulses that want you to tap out
  • Only you are watching. Are you important enough to see it through?
  • Stress makes memories (turns short-term memory into long-term)

Boredom and Solitude

  • Solitude can improve productivity, creativity, empathy, and happiness, and decrease self-consciousness.
  • Unfocused time is a restorative activity.
  • Boredom is a motivational state by design. Boredom taps into creativity. Boredom tells you to ‘do something’
  • Fogg’s Behavior Model: For a behaviour to occur you need Motivation, Ability, and a Prompt
  • Silence is more calming than most products that claim to be relaxing

Nature

  • 20mins x 3 a week in nature (without your phone) drops blood pressure, heart rate and stress
  • 3 days in nature change your mind for the better (peace, presence, happiness, gratitude)

On dieting

  • Now food is plentiful and ubiquitous our want for high calorie foods is dangerous
  • Hunger comes in waves
  • Eating for reasons beyond hunger & ultra-processed calorie rich food
  • Your body wants to built fat reserves. As body fat drops, you become hungrier and meals become less satisfying. Each KG lost results in 100 calories per day of hunger
  • We don’t lack information or advice. We lack the ability to deal with discomfort. We can’t persist against the discomfort of hunger.
  • Don’t conflate processed food with junk food. Food is processed for safety, transportation, flavour, vitamins and mineral preservation. It’s a cornerstone of human civilisation.
  • We are more likely to overeat junk food because its more calorie dense, less filling.

On dieting / behaviour change

  • Do less. Focus on eliminating limiters to progress. Modify behaviours and beliefs that are keeping you from progressing
  • Track what you eat. Close the gap between what you think you eat and what you eat.
    • Overweight people’s miscalculations are 3x bigger than average
  • Knowing what you eat will change how much you eat (like the Hawthorne effect)
  • Two reasons for eating: real hunger and reward hunger
    • Reward hunger is when you eat for dopamine and not for fuel (comfort food and stress eating). Dopamine is released and alleviates discomforts (stress, sadness)
  • Replace comfort eating with something healthier like walking
  • Stress can erode self-restraint → creating a formula for obesity. Eating is only a short lived
  • Abstinence makes off-limits foods more attractive and rewarding
  • Stress is inevitable - you need to change the response
  • Keep track of what you eat. Leverage the Hawthorne effect. Stick within plan.
Eat foods of medium energy density
  • Eat mostly unprocessed whole grains, tubers, vegetables and low-fat animal protein.
    • Keep meal satisfaction high
    • Being a healthy weight is the best thing you can do to reduce chances of cancer
    • Eating whole foods reduces changes of disease
  • Eat like an adult

On Fasting

  • You should feel hungry occasionally. Hunger triggers a series of anti-aging and rejuvenating effects
    • Skipping breakfast is the easiest way to do intermittent fasting for 12 hours
  • An extended period without food will help you operate at a higher level physically and mentally
  • Consider having a couple of 500 calories days a week.
  • Occasional 24h hours stints without food can reduce hunger and appetite
  • Embrace the discomfort of hunger. Occasionally going without food up to 24 hours is a normal and even beneficial human state.

On Happiness

  • The harder you work for something, the happier you’ll be about it (Jonathan Haidt’s - Happiness Hypothesis)
  • We are obsessively trying to improve our conditions. We get one thing and immediately want the next thing. This checklist approach to happiness (things will be better when I do x) doesn’t work.
  • Be more mindful instead.
  • Connect with the concept of impermanence to become more compassionate and mindful.
    • think of death 3 times a day (morning, afternoon, evening)
    • thinking about death enhances gratitude
  • A false sense of permanence means people put off things they truly want to do

On fatigue

  • Reach the point where you have nothing left and keep going, define a new limit.
    • As much as the human brain hates exercise, it hates failure too.
    • Exercise-induced fatigue is predominantly a protective emotion. It’s a psychological state not a good indicator of a person’s physical limits
  • Breath rhythmically to take your mind of exercise. Focus only on the breath

On Our Ancestors

  • We can all achieve amazing physical feats when we’re forced to.
  • Farming (13,000 years ago) and the industrial revolution (170 years ago) have reduced our activity levels.
  • We also lost he cognitive part of exercise when we moved exercise indoors.
  • Running on uneven ground burns 28% more calories.
  • Humans are unique because of their efficiency and ability to carry (15% of body weight)
    • Humans can beat every other mammal at distance (lions, tigers, bears, dogs)
    • Unique ability to move heavy load from A to B

Benefits of exercise

Ailment
Reduction
Heart disease kills 25%
Reduce your risk by 30% by increasing running speed from 5mph to 6mph
Cancer kills 23%
Fit people face a 45% lower risk
Accidents kill 7%
Being fit reduces your chance of dying by 80%
  • Smoking shortens your life by 10 years. Being unfit shortens it by 20 years
  • Exercise doesn’t cause heart attacks
  • Exercise often performs better than the best medications for treating issues
  • Avoid taking antibiotics unless absolutely necessary
  • Put yourself through a big challenge and you’ll be impossible to rattle - and you’ll be grateful for the little things, and become more aware of time passing
  • Benefits from a big challenge won’t be everlasting, Comfort creep will gain inches every day until your next Misogi

Alaska / Outdoor Tips

  • Wool/synthetics make good base layers as they stay warm when wet (cotton gets cold)
  • Survival order of operations:
    • First: Shelter
    • Second: Water
    • Third: Food
  • Alaska law: You can’t hunt on the same day you fly
  • The silence alone is worth the price of admission
  • Nature is brutal. Getting shot is by far the best way out for a Caribou
  • Seal training: Don’t be late, light, or last

Training Prep

2 days
Strength training (kettlebells, barbells, body weight) Squatting, jumping, lunging, pull-ups, carrying Drills to bulletproof joints (ankles, knees, shoulders)
1 day
Sprinting, walking uphill with 20kg backpack. Hiking anywhere from 5 to 15 miles Wear a 20kg backpack around the house
  • Rucking is strength and cardio in one. Causes 6x less injuries than running. Use weight as a handicap and make rucking social