Why We Need an Extension of Our Mind | Happiness as a Skill

Hi :) How are you doing today?

It’s September already! Autumn is actually my favourite season after Spring because leaves turn red and yellow, and it’s so beautiful.

If you’re thinking of visiting Japan, Spring or Autumn are the best seasons :)

1) New video “How Your Friends Shape Your Future” is now up!

2) Added more reading notes to my mind garden!

Here are the best articles, books, podcasts, tweets I found this week in Mind | Money | Relationships | Health.

It’s a long list, so I’d recommend using a read-later service like Pocket Instapaper or mymind.

I loved this short essay on why we need an extension of our mind/second brain.

Tobias talks about how our memories work and why we find it hard to remember what we see on collective databases like Google and Wikipedia.

This is why we need an extension for our OWN mind, instead of collective databases.

This really is a description of my favourite app “mymind”. It is as messy as your actual mind, but it magically sorts the info you saved so you can retrieve it easily when you need it.

This thread by Daniel Vassallo has a bunch of lessons he learned about happiness. There are some good pieces of advice in it like this one:

Another take on happiness by Tinkered Thinking.

In this thread, he/she argues that most unhappiness stems from a compulsive focus on the past and the future (i.e. regretting the past and dreading the future).

And you create happiness by removing the compulsive focus on things that are outside of your control, which he/she argues is a skill you can develop through mindfulness and/or Stoicism.

I agree with this 100%. Although, this is easier said than done. As Tinkered Thinking admits, this takes lots of time and effort. But it’s an investment worth so much in the long-term!

I loved this tweet by James Clear. Most good things come from avoiding the bad things.

Last week, I was tempted to get the Apple Watch, but this tweet made me rethink.

Wealth is the purchases you don’t make. Or as Morgan Housel says, “wealth is what you don’t spend”.

But let me tell you why I was tempted to get Apple Watch.

I’ve been checking my phone every 10 minutes lately to see Twitter or Youtube. I eventually said enough is enough and started to look for solutions.

Then I found this article about how getting a smartwatch helped the author reduce his screen time!

It sounds reasonable and might work. I’m still tempted to be honest.

While doing research for my new video, I stumbled upon this article. It says;

So, just by being next to someone, they’re influencing your habits, behaviour and mindset.

This phenomena might work against you if you surround yourself with people with low standards. But you can also take advantage of it:

More about this in my new video :)

Another article I came across while researching.

Your partner has arguably the strongest influence on who you become.

For example, imagine a husband who thinks his wife is hilarious. He laughs at her jokes and encourages her to tell them to her friends too. And over time, she might objectively become a funnier person because her husband gives her confidence in her humour.

I introduced the Wim Hof Breathing Method in the last newsletter. But another important aspect of this method is the exposure to cold.

I knew some people like Tim Ferriss incorporate cold showers and ice baths into their daily routines, but I never knew the benefits of it.

Apparently, there is body of evidence confirming cold showers do have physical and mental benefits such as more robust immune system and less stress.

So, I’ve been taking cold showers every day lately, and it surprisingly feels nice! You should give it a try if you’re interested.

I listened to a few episodes of Bulletproof radio this week. One of them is this one about breathing.

I loved the part where they talked about how free stuff like breathing exercises, taking a walk, taking cold showers, meditating and reading fictions are ones of the best resting techniques.

This is so true. I’ve decided to take more time for these things every day.

Another episode of Bulletproof radio I liked is this one about vegetable oils.

They discuss how people started to believe vegetable oils are healthy when, in fact, they are harmful for your body.

Another thing they talked about is how people fail at Keto diet because they think all fats are the same.

If you’re doing Keto diet like me, you might like this episode.

If you want to say hi, feel free to send me a DM on Twitter.

I’m more likely to reply there!

Thanks!

Have a great week :)

Shu