[vgchh]

Few changes that have helped me greatly towards a happier life are:

1. Cutting out alcohol

2. 15 minute meditation before sleeping

3. Regular exercise - e.g from YouTube

4. Eating less…sort of intermittent fasting

5. Reminding myself to do actions/thoughts that my soul would approve of. Others can do what their soul approves of or not. This has been especially useful. For example I am no longer hurt if someone is being mean. Ultimately they have to be a witness to their soul and are probably just having a bad day. I can’t get inside them and fix it for them.

Edit:

These steps have essentially made me more alert - more capable if you will. I am able to deal better with good and bad.

[kcrx]

I like this a lot. I’ve struggled with… let’s call it unhappiness a lot in my life. I spent years trying to work through deep emotional things intellectually, but the things that really got me on the right track were:

1. Sleeping 8 hours a day 2. Eating less processed foods & more fruits and vegetables 3. Walking

Simple things, and they all took time to turn into habits, but better health/more energy eventually made everything else so much easier.

[kordlessagain]

Maybe learning what kills happiness (reference to that post on how to kill pilots) leads to happiness?

[q_andrew]

7 ways to maximize misery (one of the more useful CGP Grey videos) -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o

[kcrx]

I’m going to borrow that way of thinking about it. Removing obstacles, letting go, etc.

[pdimitar]

That's the way to go. Very often if we are asked "What do you want?" we can't give a good answer, whereas "What do you dislike / hate?" almost always gets an instant answer.

In this regard I just succumbed to this brain quirk so I prefer to find 5 things this month that irk me and do my best to remove them from my life, as opposed to meditating hours every day trying to find those 3-4 ultimate things that will instantly make me happy.

Better chase the mouse in your feet than to try and find the elephant beyond the horizon.

[AlwaysRock]

I mean this list seems obvious but its incredible how few people do it.

Intermittent fasting is the only way I have been able to control my weight as an adult.

Exercising makes you feel better and live longer.

Alcohol is a poison that offers short term fun for long term sadness and pain.

Sleep makes an immediately and daily impact on your life.

Meditation (I don't do it anymore) is like cleaning for your brain and short amounts can be very helpful.

[sankumsek]

Could I ask why you don't do meditation anymore?

[AlwaysRock]

I have ADHD and even 7 minutes of guided meditation does wonders for my restless mind in the morning. But mostly I feel out of habit and have not gotten back into it. I was diagnosed with ADHD at 25 so spend most of my life with racing thoughts.

The clarity I got from meditation was nice but it also feels like it impairs the way I am used to my brain working so the trade off was not really welcomed.

I cut my caffeine consumption drastically (several expressos a day to 1 regular cup) which helped with racing thoughts and started taking melatonin before bed which helps prevent me staying awake trying to sleep for hours. Those two things also came from meditation but I'm able to get them elsewhere now without losing some of the creativity I find in my thought patterns during the day.

[wing-_-nuts]

>Alcohol is a poison that offers short term fun for long term sadness and pain.

Alcohol in excess? Certainly, but I don't buy the idea that alcohol in moderation is harmful.

There have, of course, been studies that draw negative conclusions about alcohol, but they either commingle societal effects or discount the cardiovascular benefits.

TLDR: Alcohol in moderation is fine. Just don't drink to excess. Nearly all the negative impacts of alcohol are on a J-shaped curve that increase exponentially beyond about 20 drinks / week, and that is far from 'moderate' drinking.

[mahogany]

The J-shaped curves that you mention might be due to flaws in study design. In particular, the category of alcohol-abstainers includes people who are abstaining for health-related reasons (for example, former heavy drinkers!), so you would expect this to inflate the rate of negative impacts for abstainers. When these biases are controlled for, the benefits of alcohol consumption -- in any quantity -- largely disappear, especially when it comes to all-cause mortality, where the relationship may be closer to linear than J-shaped.

For example, see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803651/ or https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31571-X (has some useful references)

If you have seen other studies which refute these ideas, I'm interested (as an alcohol consumer :)).

[wing-_-nuts]

Yeah, the 'sick quitter' problem is pretty tricky, but even if you look at studies that only consider cancer rates, yes, the rates rise with consumption, but things really only explode exponentially past a certain point that is way higher than anyone should be drinking.

Personally, I typically limit myself to a 6 pack a week. I think even a 12 pack a week wouldn't do much harm, and if we're talking about happiness, having a beer with friends certainly does add to that. I am perfectly willing to accept a small increased risk for that. None of us are making it out of this life alive.

[mahogany]

> and if we're talking about happiness, having a beer with friends certainly does add to that. I am perfectly willing to accept a small increased risk for that.

That I can definitely agree with. Over-optimizing your every action solely to lower your mortality chance by tiny fractions is no way to go through life.

[AlwaysRock]

Sure. I'm not saying everyone should stop drinking. I'm saying more people should actually do unbiased research into the impacts of drinking on their health because most people either under estimate the risk or the amount they actually drink.

That being said I do know a few people who actually only drink a beer or two a month with buddies. Good for them. I suppose that they could also drink an iced tea or diet coke and enjoy their friends company/be enjoyed my their friends just as much without the negative impact of the booze. I'm able to.

If someone is drinking more than a few beers than that isnt actually drinking in moderation. Many people who "drink occasionally" actually binge drink occasionally but since it is not that often they think no harm is being done.

[AlwaysRock]

I am a bit more bullish on this point that most and don't have articles prepared but booze causes cancer, even small amounts impact mood and sleep greatly, small amounts impact your ability to fight infections, and most "alcohol in moderation is okay" articles cite one singular study that is flawed.

You'll find about 1000 research articles stating alcohol is bad for you for every one saying in very specific circumstances it is okay for you in moderation.

At the end of the day its one of the leading causes of death in the world and for MOST people it does more bad for them than good. But its fun and the negative effects are not always immediate in the short term and its part of many cultures so its not going away anytime soon.

If you get curious doing really any amount of research about the negative impacts of booze, even small amounts, will show an overwhelming amount of evidence.

[ketzo]

I mean, this is purely anecdotal, but if I drink two or three glasses of wine in a night, I get noticeably worse sleep quality than if I drink nothing.

There are long-term effects associated with heavy drinking, but there are also short-term negative effects (for some people) associated with pretty much any alcohol consumption at all. Headaches, acid reflux, etc.

[wing-_-nuts]

Yep, some people are especially sensitive to alcohol, and it does absolutely trash one's rem sleep. This is why I typically only drink on the weekends, limit consumption, and try not to drink after 4-5pm.