What is Productive Struggle? - Issue 1 - 20th March 2022
The idea of embracing struggle is not a new idea, Stoic philosophers such as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius wrote considerably about that very idea. Most of us humans have to fight our natural impulses and the pill of embracing struggle is a hard one for us to swallow. However, that is precisely what makes it worth swallowing. Those people we all know who are naturally stoic or who ace tests without any effort should not be admired. As Seneca said, he admires the person “who has won a victory over the meanness of his own nature, and has not gently led himself, but has wrestled his way, to wisdom.” We, as a culture, like to look at ultra successful people and see them as lucky. They were born into wealth or they were naturally gifted. This may be true of some but the majority of them worked their arses off to get where they are. The majority will have felt stuck and lost before they made their first thousand pounds. All of those who have progressed and become successful or who have found meaning and purpose had to face struggle and hardship and fight their natural impulses. Our natural impulses tell us to keep eating what’s bad for us while we have it good, it will tell us to keep having sex with as many people as we can or watch as much pornography as we can while the going is good, it tells us to stay inside and warm while we have shelter and it tells us to stay in bed while we’re safe but the problem is, in our modern society, the going is always good, we always have an abundance of food, we always have the opportunity to ‘pro-create’ (or watch pornography, your brain doesn’t really know the difference) and the majority of us have a warm house. Our brains are the same brains as we had when we were hunting for our food, fighting to survive and searching for at least one mate to continue our bloodline. So what happens when we provide these brains with everything we need and much more? We become fragile, timid and lazy. However, we can trick our brain and carry out activities and habits that are hard but are more similar to what our brains were provided with when we were hunter-gatherers. We can go outside into the cold and into nature and run, we can limit our use of modern technology and meditate to be within ourselves and listen to our natural ways of being, we can intermittently fast or eat healthier, more natural food and we can force our brain to struggle and grow rather than be comfortable and stagnant.
However the idea of embracing struggle and pain does not have to be such a depressing notion. Most of the the things we can do to embrace struggle and pain actually cause us to feel good after. Going for a run or working out is somewhat painful and it is a struggle to get going, but we feel great afterwards. Getting out of ice cold water after 5 minutes feels great and evidence shows that cold exposure increases levels of norepinephrine and dopamine in the bloodstream by as much as 530% and 250%. Low levels of dopamine tend to cause low motivation and low levels of norepinephrine tend to cause low moods and lack of focus. Evidence shows that limiting your use of modern technology like pornography or social media literally re-wires your brain and increases the amount of pleasure you receive from carrying out healthier habits like exercising or reading. Embracing struggle and pain should not be struggling or hurting yourself for the sake of it, it should be something productive, healthy and something that will cause pleasure at some point.
The antidote to low levels of motivation or to comfort and staying put is to volunteer yourself to struggle in order to progress, grow stronger and live a more meaningful life.
Keep on Struggling,
Gregor
Documentary Recommendation - My Street
My Street is a short documentary surrounding a journalist, Sue Bourne’s (pictured) exploration of the people living on her street. It’s a simple premise but it packs some deep and meaningful themes that remind us to be kind and empathetic towards others as we allege fact that we all have our struggles and most likely there’s someone out there struggling more than you but our struggles unite us more than divide us.
Here’s some of the description - “Sue Bourne had lived in her street for fifteen years yet she knew practically none of her neighbours…She began knocking on the doors and meeting her neighbours and this award-winning film is the story of what she found.”
You can watch it for free on YouTube below.
Book Recommendation - Atomic Habits
I’ve just finished the book Atomic Habits by James Clear and found many strategies and techniques for introducing and maintaining positive habits and eliminating negative ones. Here’s some of the blurb - “Transform your life with tiny changes in behaviour, starting now. People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He knows that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions: doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call. He calls them atomic habits.”
You can buy the book below.
Activity I’ve Been Experimenting With - Ice Baths
I have been experimenting with ice baths for the last two months. I found out about this via various sources such as Joe Rogan, Wim Hoff (pictured) and Joe Wickes. For month one, I was filling my bath with cold water and adding a few ice cubes and lying in it for seven minutes. Then for month two, I added more ice and am now lying in it for ten minutes. I read about the mental health benefits in Dr Anna Lembke’s book Dopamine Nation. I spoke with Anna for episode 19 of In Context which you can watch here. I’d just like to say that I’m not a doctor and am not qualified to prescribe any activity so I recommended you research this or speak to your GP before attempting an ice bath. I have linked a website to research this here and here is the potential health benefits.