Season 1 – Supermorning

The first season of Supermorning featured shorter daily posts. Well over 200 of these posts combined to describe a happy, healthy, wealthy, productive, and sustainable life.

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Introducing the Emotion Safari

This week we’ll dive into a very interesting technique I like to call the “emotion safari”. It’s designed to increase mindfulness of the Big Five primitive emotions we covered last week. 

But first, let’s take a quick 1-2-3 recap of the Big Five primitive emotions:

  1. We all struggle to consistently do the things we know are good for us and avoid doing the things we know are bad for us. 
  2. The reason for this irrational behavior is that our world has changed completely over the last 0.1% of human history (more details), leaving many of our instincts and emotions badly outdated. 
  3. The five most important primitive emotions are: craving, ego, sloth, frustration and worry. They all worked worked fine over the first 99.9% of human history, but are causing big problems in today’s world. 

The first post last week also introduced the idea of the caveman with an evolved consciousness. It states that each of us consists of two entities:

  • A body and mind that evolved over the first 99.9% of human history (the caveman). 
  • An evolved consciousness capable of reasoning beyond these primitive caveman instincts. 

To make this more concrete, I encouraged you to give your caveman a name 🙂 This is a fun experiment that allows you to directly communicate with your outdated emotions. 

Getting a high level of control over your body and mind with these techniques requires a thorough understanding. Hence, we get to this week’s…

Monday 5-minute action Get to know the Big Five primitive emotions by heart

 

I strongly encourage you to reread last weeks post. It’s crucial that you know the Big Five well enough to instantly recognize them if they pop up in you head. 

These primitive emotions do most of their damage when they can remain abstract and fuzzy. But the moment we shine a light on them, they lose a lot of their power. 

And this is the aim of the emotion safari: training the mind to shine a light on these dark creatures whenever they close in. 

Tomorrow, we’ll cover the technique in detail. See you then!

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Recap: Primitive Emotions

Change is the only constant.

Over the past 0.1% of human history, these five words have emerged as the dominant force in our lives.

Yes, our society has changed so dramatically over the past 200 years that many of the instincts we evolved over the first 99.9% of human history are now badly outdated. As a result, our default actions often hurt more than they help, causing heaps of self-inflicted suffering. 

The second chapter of the Supermorning series will address this fundamental issue directly. And the foundation of the approach we’ll follow is summarized below:

The checklist

Here are the three key actions required to build a solid foundation:

  1. Form a clear understanding of the underlying problem of outdated emotions.
    1. Understand that, for all practical purposes, we are cavemen stuck in the future.
    2. This is the fundamental reason why we find it so hard to consistently do the right things. 
  2. Make sure you know the Big Five primitive emotions by heart.
    1. It’s important that you’re able to identify them instantly when they arise. 
    2. We’ll talk a lot more about the Big Five in coming weeks.
  3. Give your caveman a name.
    1. This fun technique can immediately increase your control over your primitive emotions.
    2. Your job is to patiently train your caveman for effective living in the modern world. 

I really hope this philosophy can benefit you as much as it did me 🙂 

May you and your caveman have a pleasant weekend! 

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Taming Primitive Emotions

Yesterday’s post introduced the Big Five primitive emotions responsible for most of the pain and suffering in the developed world today. These instincts protected us well for 99.9% of human history, but the enormous changes over the past two centuries have turned them into big liabilities. 

But enough about the problems. Let’s get to the solution. 

Realities

First, we need to get real. These primitive emotional responses have evolved over many millennia. Expecting them to just magically vanish is not realistic.

Besides, each of them still has a useful purpose. They’re just badly out of balance following the total transformation of our society over the last 0.1% of human history. 

Over the coming weeks, we’ll discuss several ways to restore order. First, we’ll increase awareness of these primitive emotional responses and bring them back into balance. Then we’ll work on reshaping our environment to have them work for us instead of against us. 

Like most good things in life, this is a process. But we’ll take it step by step at a comfortable pace. 

Immediate impact

For now, I’d like to share an interesting strategy that can start helping right away. It’s a fun psychological experiment that will take your mind to places it hasn’t been before. 

On Monday, I asked you to give your primitive mind and body a name. Mine’s called “Homer.”

To be successful, Homer and I must learn to work together. Without Homer, I’m nothing. But without my intervention, Homer will self-destruct in no time. 

So, whenever I feel an outdated emotional response pulling us down the wrong path, I can have an inner dialogue with Homer. His honest intention is to protect me, so he responds surprisingly well to informed advice on how to do this job better. 

From a proper understanding of the Big Five, Homer’s default actions and thought patterns often appear so ridiculous that it’s genuinely funny. Having a goodhearted laugh about this really makes it much easier to consistently avoid such primitive actions.

For more nuanced situations, I explain to Homer that I understand where he’s coming from (200 millennia of human evolution), but that some changes are required in today’s world. For a caveman, he’s pretty smart and often accepts my reasoning.  

This sounds odd at first, I know, but it really does help. Try it, even if it’s only to see what happens to your brain when you do this interesting experiment 🙂   

Then I’ll see you tomorrow when we wrap up this week’s topic. 

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Right Emotions, Wrong Era

Yesterday we took a brief trip through human history. We discovered how dramatically the world has changed over the past 0.1% of human history, leaving many of our instinctive emotional responses badly outdated. 

This post will dig a little deeper into the most important outdated emotions. 

But before we start, I just want to emphasize that emotions certainly are not inherently bad. Things like inspiration, compassion, hope and love are all good. Even the emotions listed below can help in certain cases. 

The problem is just that they are badly out of balance in today’s world. Let me explain what I mean by briefly discussing the Big Five primitive emotions.   

Craving

For 99.9% of human history, getting enough food to survive was very difficult. For this reason, those with the strongest drive to get their hands on food and other consumables survived to pass on their genes. 

After thousands of generations of this natural selection, we’re now stuck with an enormous drive to consume. And today, with material abundance all around us, this is a serious problem. 

Of course, smart entrepreneurs exploit this instinctive drive to the max. Hyper-palatable nutrient-free foods are a prime example of products designed to send this primitive instinct into overdrive.

The obvious result is that most of the rich world is overweight and unhealthy, even though we’re all desperate to be in great shape to satisfy the next primitive instinct.

Ego

For most of human history, rejection from the tribe meant almost certain death. Over the millennia, this led to an overwhelming desire to fit in and gain the respect of our peers.  

The most insidious effect of this primitive instinct is our fear of rejection, which leads to an intense fear of failure or any kind of perceived public embarrassment.

In today’s world of constant change, repeatedly trying new things is mandatory for making progress. Indeed, those who avoid failure cannot grow and, ironically, cannot win the respect of their peer group.

This results in a dangerous vicious cycle where the fear of rejection becomes even stronger, leading to even more avoidance, more stagnation, and less respect from the tribe.  

Sloth

Like most animals, humans are naturally lazy. This is an important instinct we evolved to conserve energy, which was critical for survival over our long history when food was scarce.  

As evidenced by the global obesity epidemic, we certainly no longer have any energy shortage. But our laziness remains. We will still naturally slack off until some other primitive emotional response spurs us into action. This is why we cram everything into the last bit of time before a deadline. 

But this is all wrong in today’s world where we need tons of proactive productive action to achieve real success and fulfillment. Sloth has therefore gone from an important survival mechanism to a huge competitive disadvantage.    

Frustration

Life in the old days was incredibly hard. But it was simple. Therefore, the simple emotions of Frustration and it’s big brother “Anger” became very effective blunt tools for fixing things that were not to our liking. 

Today’s world is totally different. By historical standards, life has become very easy, but also much more complex. This complexity gives us many things to be frustrated about. But the problem is that most of these things are either out of our hands or too complicated to fix with a natural angry response. 

The result is far too many people walking around with loads of pent-up anger and frustration. This serves no useful purpose. It just drains our mental energy and motivation, making it even harder to resist the negative effects of all the other outdated emotions on this page.

Worry

The four primitive emotions discussed thus far all focus on the short term. But our ancestors also faced several threats that required some longer-term planning (e.g. the harsh winter months). 

That’s where Worry emerged as a highly effective survival mechanism. It allowed us to instinctively act on potential threats before they even arrived, greatly increasing our chance of survival. Thus, the best “Worriers” got to pass on their genes. 

Sadly, this useful primitive emotion easily becomes inaccurate and/or overwhelmed in today’s world of great complexity and information overload. As a result, it often drains our mental energy and immobilizes us for no good reason, becoming a major drag on our development.  

So, these are Big Five primitive emotional responses causing most of the heartache and pain in the developed world today. 

It would be interesting to hear if you can think of a source of unhappiness that cannot be traced back to these five issues. 

Tomorrow, we’ll look at an interesting approach to start dealing with these outdated emotions. See you then!

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Cavemen Stuck in the Future

Yesterday’s post introduced the idea that each of us consists of two entities: 

  • A body and mind that evolved over the first 99.9% of human history (the caveman). 
  • An evolved consciousness capable of reasoning beyond these primitive caveman instincts. 

Over the next two months, we’ll be focusing on a simple problem: How can the evolved consciousness be used to train the caveman for effective living in the modern world?

The first step was discussed yesterday: give your caveman a name. 

The second step is to really understand this philosophy. This is the topic of today and tomorrow. 

A brief human history

The first modern humans emerged around 200 millennia ago. Back then, times were tough. There was no electricity, cars, or internet. There wasn’t even a supermarket to get food. 

Nope, back then, every day was a struggle to stay alive. All efforts had to be devoted to getting enough food for survival and protecting ourselves against predators and rival tribes. 

As the millennia ticked by, very little changed. Some more sophisticated civilizations slowly rose and fell, but still only kings and emperors had access to the material wealth we take for granted today. 

It was only about 200 years ago that the exploitation of fossil fuels really ignited human progress. As shown below, we used this abundant new energy source to fuel a tremendous population explosion.

The period before this population boom represents about 99.9% of human history. Over these 200 millennia, we evolved all the instincts and emotions required to ensure survival in our harsh environment. 

Then, in an evolutionary blink of an eye, our environment changed beyond all recognition. Material abundance is now all around us and the daily problems we’re dealing with are totally different. 

And that’s the problem: Many of our instincts and emotions are useless for building a good life in this new environment of great abundance and great complexity. 

Accepting your caveman

The most immediate benefit from this understanding is a sense of self-acceptance. From this viewpoint, it’s clear that your inability to consistently do the right things does not make you a bad person. You, like the rest of us, are simply a caveman (or cavewoman 🙂 ) stuck in the future. 

Accepting this truth on a deep level can be quite liberating. It will also make it a lot easier to train your caveman for effective living in our rapidly changing society. 

Try to remember this the next time you’re drawn to do something you know is bad for you. You can even strike up a little conversation with your caveman. Explain that you understand where he’s coming from, but that his instinctive response is no longer valid today. See what happens…

Then join me again tomorrow when we dig into the five outdated emotions causing most of the misery in today’s world.

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Let Me Introduce You to Yourself

The second chapter of Supermorning will delve pretty deep into the human psyche. In particular, we’ll be focusing on the this age-old question:

Why is it so damn hard to do the right things? 

We all want a happy, healthy, wealthy, and productive life. Some even strive for sustainability. And yet, far too many people are over-stressed, overweight, broke, depressed and environmentally destructive. 

Why is this? How do so many people end up so far from where they want to be in this world of great material affluence? It really is rather bizarre if you think about it.  

The reason

Well, this part is actually pretty simple: our world has changed so dramatically over the past 0.1% of human history that many of our instinctive emotional responses are now totally outdated. You’ll hear plenty more about this in the next couple of posts. 

But understanding this is one thing. Translating this understanding into a real day-to-day practical benefit is something totally different. 

An actionable analogy

That’s why I want to start this new Supermorning chapter with an analogy that really helps to put this knowledge into action: the caveman with an evolved consciousness. 

It sounds weird, I know, but it really is very simple. Each of us consists of two entities:

  • A body and mind that evolved over the first 99.9% of human history (the caveman). 
  • An evolved consciousness capable of reasoning beyond these primitive caveman instincts. 

So, let’s try an interesting psychological experiment: 

Monday 1-minute action Give your caveman a name

 

This seems silly at first, but trust me, it’s very powerful.

My caveman’s name is “Homer”, short for Homo erectus (primitive humans that lived a long time ago). The image of the rather primitive Homer Simpson also comes to mind 🙂

Homer is the vessel through which I (the evolved consciousness) interact with the world. Without Homer, I can’t do anything. But if I just give Homer free reigns in today’s affluent society, he’ll destroy himself (and me) in no time. 

This idea may take a while before it really sinks in. But just keep an open mind and start by giving your caveman a name. Then recall this analogy whenever you’re drawn to something you know is bad for you and observe what happens in your mind.

But I’ll leave it there for now. Tune in again tomorrow when we’ll take a brief trip through human history to understand the caveman in each of us. 

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Week 12 of Getting 1% Better

This week’s weather was terrible, even by Norwegian standards. But luckily, that did not stop me from having a great week 🙂 You can see the healthy upwards trend in the little red bit at the end of my Graph of Life below. 

Thanks to my data obsession, I’ve been logging a subjective score of the weather on my Graph of Life for about nine months now. From these 270 data points, I can now confidently say that the quality of my day is completely immune to changes in the weather.

Weather is probably the most complained about thing in Norway, so I was very happy to see this. It’s certainly useful to be unaffected by things we have no control over, such as bad weather, stupid politicians, or the bad performance of your favorite sports team. 

All you need to know about this graph is that it heads upwards if I have a great day and downwards if the day is just good. I've not had a bad or even just an average day for the past 11 months :-)
All you need to know about this graph is that it heads upwards if I have a great day and downwards if the day is just good. I’ve not had a bad or even just an average day for the past 11 months 🙂

 

So, how was your week? Did you manage to look after your health, make some good personal and professional progress, and nurture your relationships? If so, you probably made your 1% gain this week 🙂

If not, what can you improve? Could it help to spend less mental energy on things like the weather that are totally outside your control?  

Finally, this month’s experiment of bringing back weekend posts did not make much difference. So, hopefully for the last time, weekend posts will now be removed again. 

How well did you look after yourself this week?
Vote

Do you feel that you made progress this week?
Vote

How do you feel about your relationships and general human interactions?
Vote
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Recap: Morning Routine

After nearly 50 posts about morning routines, we’ve reached the finishing line! Next week, we’ll move on to the interesting psychology involved in getting genuine control over your mind and body. 

But first, let’s formally wrap up the critical topic of maintaining a proper daily morning routine. 

Before we get to the checklist, I just want to reemphasize that a morning routine is much more liberating than restrictive. Being disciplined in the first and last hours of the day gives you much greater freedom and control over all the hours in between.

Please keep this in mind if you still have doubts about committing to a proper morning routine. 

But now, let’s move on to…

The checklist

Here’s the 1-2-3 of of implementing and maintaining a good morning routine:

  1. Commit! Any halfhearted attempts at building a morning routine will fail. 
  2. Decide which elements you want to include. The recaps of the different options covered on this blog are linked below:
  3. Experiment. Everyone’s situation is unique, so you’ll need some trial and error to find your ideal routine. 
    • Have a plan for those inevitable difficult mornings.
    • Make sure you give yourself a fair chance at making this work by prioritizing sleep. 
    • Try to incorporate a lovely flow into your routine. Mine is detailed here as an example.  

So, that’s it. The topic of morning routines is officially done and dusted!

If you have any feedback or suggestions that can help me improve these morning routine guidelines, please use the form below.

Your message will not be publicly visible, so please don’t hold back. Having gone through the scientific peer-review publication process about 100 times, I’m used to critical feedback 🙂

The Supermorning blog will run on an annually repeating basis, so this time next year I will present an improved version of these morning routine guidelines. Your feedback is important to make sure that next year’s version really offers a clear improvement.

Thanks in advance!

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My Evening Routine

The idea of an evening routine is to calm the mind to facilitate a night of longer and better quality sleep. This makes it so much easier to master the next morning (and the next day). 

My evening routine has five relaxing (but still useful) steps.

It all starts with turning on my evening playlist and reading something technical for 5-10 minutes. I try to time it so that I’m done roughly at the end of the first song on my playlist (below). 

Candidates for this reading session fall into the category of “boring but important.” For example, this habit helped me read all 600 pages of the 2018 World Energy Outlook – not exactly riveting reading material, but vital for my research. 

Then I do a final check over my to-do list. This just takes a minute and usually gives me a lovely sense of completion, putting my mind at ease for the night. After that, I put my PC to sleep and turn off the lights as an official gesture that all productive activities for the day are now done. 

Then comes a relatively new addition to my evening routine: 10 minutes of guided meditation using Headspace. Despite some initial skepticism, I was quite impressed with the product and had no problems maintaining this habit for almost 50 days now. 

I end with a 5-minute Rodney Yee PM yoga session (which I do from memory), followed by a 15 minute session in my luxurious massage chair. During this 20 minutes, I do something interesting with my mind called an “emotion safari”. We’ll get to that in a couple of weeks. 

In total, this whole routine takes just a little over 30 minutes. I’ve been doing most elements of this routine for a long time, but only properly formalized the whole package a little over a month ago. Since then, I’ve actually seen a clear increase in my sleep quality from about 70% to about 80% (see the jump from the blue dots to the red dots in the graph below).

So, I hope you can get around to building a nice evening routine of your own. It’s proven to be quite valuable in my case. 

See you tomorrow for the final morning routine post!

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