At the start of 2017 when researching my book on the wellness industry, I signed up to a heap of podcasts, including one that dropped three self-development, wellness and life hack-themed shows into my feed each week.
Sadly, I had a busy year, and listened to none of them – until last week.
While holidaying on the Victorian coast between Christmas and New Year, I decided to cram in as many as I could. The podcasts covered everything from jiujitsu to journalling to cell-enhancing IV infusions to ketosis to psychedelics.
What wisdom did they hold for the new year? And if you try to listen to 75 self-development podcasts in 10 days, could you actually become a better person?
These are the lessons I learned from my wellbeing podcast binge.
We are being controlled by our dopamine centres
Many of the podcasts touched on how our addictions and bad habits were derailing us from our intentions – including social media addiction, sugar, alcohol and drugs.
What all these things have in common is that they trigger the production of dopamine in the brain and, much like lab rats on cocaine, we just keep pushing the buttons that will give us another dose of pleasure.
This can be caused by constantly checking Facebook for likes, or finishing a whole pack of Doritos even when we’re not hungry.
In The Upgrade by Lifehacker, Dr Robert Lustig was helpful when talking about how habit-forming products are made.
“What’s happening is we are more and more using our lizard brain than our cognitive brain. How do we fight that?” he asks.
Habit-forming products are being made in everything from tech products to biscuits. “They give you an itch, they give you the scratch,” he said.
He advises a range of solutions all starting with a “C”. “Connect” in person – go off Facebook, it causes serotonin depletion. “Contribute” something that helps the world. “Cope” by getting enough sleep (get rid of screens in the room while sleeping), mindfulness, exercise (great in alleviating depression); and “cook”, so you can see what is going in your food.
Discipline equals freedom
There is something vaguely fascist about this slogan, but does it hold the key to succeeding in New Year resolutions, such as getting fit and losing weight?
Guest presenting the Tim Ferris Show, former US navy Seal Jocko Willink speaks at normal volume and tempo until partway through the podcast, when he starts screaming and sounding very tough. “Here’s the reality,” he shrieks, “that idea isn’t going to execute themselves, that book isn’t going to write itself, those weights out in the gym aren’t going to move themselves ... Stop researching every aspect and debating the pros and cons – do it now. Get after it. Here. And now.”
But how?
“Put your workout clothes out the night before. Set your alarm for 4.30 and when the alarm goes off – get urpppppp.”
Yes, you have to get up at 4.30am every day to do exercise. The advantage is that you will have more time in the day to do other things, and psychologically you will feel proud because hardly anyone else is up.
Also, you are less likely to want donuts for breakfast – instead, says Willink, you’ll be craving “clean fuel” such as “bacon and eggs”.
Further exercise advice on the podcast feed comes from basketballer LeBron James in “Succeass! How I Did It”. LeBron gets up at 5am and exercises a minimum five times a week (as well as playing actual games). Sometimes he works out at home, sometimes he goes to Pilates, sometimes he does a spin class. He mixes it up.
Journal
On the Kevin Rose show, author Tim Ferriss says the three habits common to a lot of successful people he interviewed in his book Tribe of Mentors were meditation, walking and keeping a journal.
It’s hardly ironman stuff but it’s where ideas and innovative thinking come from, apparently.
Ferriss, who podcasts a lot about supplements, talks about hooking himself up to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide IV, in an effort to get the energy he had in his teens and 20s. During his IV sessions he experienced short-lived violent organ pain. I’ll take journalling!
The Asian Efficiency podcast devoted more than an hour to journalling. If you do it consistently it can have a major social and psychological impact, according to the podcast.Whether in a REAL book or via an app, writing in a journal can help you identify the habits you want to create and track your progress.
They help you understand what is going on in your life, so the flight or fight response isn’t triggered. Instead, journalling gives you distance and perspective on things that are happening in your life.
Infidelity is not the problem, something else is the problem
On the Tony Robbins podcast, relationships expert Esther Perel talks about why people cheat. It is often not the infidelity per se that is the problem, but the issues that brought the person to cheat.
Cheating can be used as an opportunity to help us understand intimacy and the other person’s expectations, she says.
My feed also includes a number of episodes from Perel’s podcast Where Should We Begin. The show, which is a recording of an unhappy couple’s therapy session, is a revelation..
In an episode titled I’ve Had Better, infidelity occurred because the couple stopped communicating in a deep way, and the wife had buried resentments towards the husband that hadn’t even been voiced.
So what did I learn? Get up at 4.30am; exercise at least five times a week; go off social media; be aware how food companies want to control your brain; know that cheating may be instructive, not destructive; and stay away from IV infusions.
- Brigid Delaney is a Guardian Australia columnist
