I will go with Wanting by Luke Burgis. It makes the works of Rene Girard accessible. For me, it made me conscious of how much of our nature is simply copying others. Basically, one should make a conscious effort to select who to copy. Also, because we copy it means we would have a desire for the same object in which conflict can arise. We can realize this and take steps to mitigate possible conflict.
I am teaching a new course this semester. It's helping with the creating of notes, creating exercises and providing a variety of examples of the material to be understood.
I recall reading in "Wanting" by Luke Burgis that he was a follower of Rene Girard. "Thiel left the corporate world and co-founded Confinity with Max Levchin in 1998. He began to use his knowledge of mimetic theory to help him manage both the business and his life. "
"When there was risk of an all-out war with Elon Musk’s rival company, X.com, Thiel merged with him to form PayPal. He knew from Girard that when two people (or two companies) take each other as mimetic models, they enter into a rivalry for which there is no end but destruction—unless they are somehow able to see beyond the rivalry."[1]
Maybe he has found a way to identify when things will self-destruct based off of mimetic theory.
Surgical Tape. I read Breath by James Nestor[1]. One of the suggestions is to put a one inch tape over your mouth during the night. It prevents mouth breathing and reduce instances of sleep apnea. I tried it; I start feeling refreshed after 3 days. You can give it a try, surgical tape is like $5USD.
1. Friends... Typically, when I am around friends, my happiness can increase by 1.5(measured out of 5). This is enough to put me back in the normal range. I used the term friends here loosely. Just being around people provides a lift. Easiest way to gain friends is to join a club (may I suggest chess). Being lonely is as painful as being wildly hungry or thirsty [1]
2. Exercise...Typically, I exercise for 32mins(stairclimbing) daily. Every fifty minutes of weekly exercise corresponds to a 50% drop in the odds of being depressed. [2]
3. Massages - I feel significantly better after a massage.
4. Have a schedule - Typically, I have a routine. First, I brush my teeth in the morning. This might seem simple, but it's an easy habit to form and can form the start of a habit chain [3]. By chaining habits(i.e. creating one habit directly following another), I don't use much energy to get my day going. I Brush my teeth then the rest of my day flows from there. I automatically go on my gallery workout while reading then update my expenses etc.
5. Keep Busy - “A wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” [4] This is probably the most important point. Always keep busy.
1. Mini-Habit - https://www.chestergrant.com/26-highlights-from-mini-habits-by-stephen-guise
2. Checklist Manifesto - https://www.chestergrant.com/highlights-from-the-checklist-manifesto-by-atul-gawande
3. The rise of superman - https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-the-rise-of-superman-by-steven-kotler
Business
1. Traction - https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-traction-by-gabriel-weinberg-and-justin-mares
2. Contagious - https://www.chestergrant.com/contagious-by-jonah-berger
3. How to be a power connector - https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-how-to-be-a-power-connector-the-5-plus-50-plus-100-rule-by-judy-robinett
4. The mom test - https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-the-mom-test-by-rob-fitzpatrick
5. Never eat alone - https://www.chestergrant.com/never-eat-alone-by-keith-ferrazzi-with-tahl-raz
6. Hooked - https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-hooked-how-to-build-habit-forming-products-by-nir-eyal
From a similar view, the book, "Spark: How Exercise will improve your performance by Dr. John Ratey" has other benefits of exercising:
1. Exercise is better than Zoloft in treating depression
2. Students with higher fitness scores also have higher test scores
3. People learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster following exercise than they did before exercise
4. A massive Dutch study of 19,288 twins and their families published in 2006 showed that exercisers are less anxious, less depressed, less neurotic, and also more socially outgoing.
5. A study in London in 2004 showed that even ten minutes of exercise could blunt an alcoholic’s craving.
I have no doubt that exercise is good for you, but I'm extremely skeptical about these kind of books. I haven't read this one specifically but from your description it fits this archetype of pop-science books that cite studies as proof. But studies, especially these kinds of studies, are no proof. It sounds like a huge collection of selection-bias based experiments, which already suffer from selection bias due to the academic system, spun into a narrative to sell a book to the general clueless population.
Again, I'm sure exercise is great for you (how could it be bad?), but given how difficult it is to get replication in these types of studies I wouldn't trust any of the specific results... I'd bet lots of money that, for example, "People learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster" is complete BS and not replicable.
I'm completely over self-help books now. Why pay $20 to be taught that water is wet in 200+ pages. Exercise is good, drinking water is good, sleep is good, et cetera. The exact percentage doesn't really matter.
You can think of self-help books as stocks and you are a venture capitalist. So books may contain zero value and add no benefits to your life, while others might provide information and advice that presents you with new information that adds thousand or even millions of dollars to your life. The winners pay for the losers. Valuable insights I have gotten from reading self help books:
1. The frequency of a habit matters more for the development of a habit than the intensity. My chess coaching motto came from this book: "Consistency over Intensity"[1]
2. Most people are deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is considered the anti-stress mineral. A central symptom of the deficiency is insomnia. Personally, I started taking 250mg of magnesium supplement daily. [2]
3. Similarly, to the fight-or-flight response, there is pause-and-plan response. Your willpower can be increase by slowing down your breathing thus triggering the pause and plan response. This is something I do when I get intense cravings during my fast.[3]
4. Putting some tape over your mouth before bed can stop sleep apnea. Admittedly, I have stopped this(I will restart), but when I did, I had some of the most refreshing sleep.[4]
5. Another of my mottos, progress equals happiness came from reading self-help books. [5]
You just summarised a bunch of information I could have absorbed from an article, and in this case a single comment on hackernews. Buying and reading a whole book for that level of insight seems like a waste of time.
I wouldn't doubt that the specifics are incorrect, but the general picture is good. As a chess player, I can tell you I feel the difference between days I work out and days I don't.
The effect is explained by the increase in cerebral blood flow as opposed to sitting. I myself have experienced it. If you have a goal involving something creative, try walking for 20-30 minutes at a good pace before you attempt it. You’ll notice the difference in energy, germination of ideas, and attention and focus. It works.
I recommend you read Spark, I think exercise as a valid treatment for a number of mental health conditions is a good hypothesis worth exploring and experimenting.
I wouldn't take the results for granted either but I think it can be worth it to test it on yourself.
Excellent book. I read it a long time ago. I’m sure if their was an update their would be even more studies showing the massive benefits of exercise on all aspects of life.
This book is now my favorite of all time. I found that Self-Control has physical markers to be a particularly interesting idea, and that the best index of self control is heart rate variability which can be controlled via slowing your breathing.
Thanks for writing this and I am tempted (pun!) to get the book. And I need to meditate again as a bout of covid and other stuff got me off that wagon.
My exercise physiologist has been encouraging me to vary heart rate when walking (to aid fatigue issues) and then I see the points you make about it and I am super curious about this effect.
A surprising insight of the book is that having hierarchies reduces conflict. I wrote a summary of the book here: https://www.chestergrant.com/summary-wanting-by-luke-burgis