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.
Hmm... I am big believer in mini-habits[1] and chaining habits. The way how I structure by day is to start off small with one habit then keep chaining it to other habits. For instance, I would start my day brush my teeth. It is a small easy habit to get going in the morning. Then, I will chain this habit to exercising. With exercising there are two versions... one I call my minimum and the other is my regular training regimen. My minimum is like 2 min or so of working out, something easy to do that can be replicated each day without any problems. Then, I chain my exercise routine with creating a todo list of the day. Which is chained to tracking my spending. My goal right now is to establish some evening habits. Right now I am little reckless with my evenings.
Reinforcement Learning, second edition: An Introduction by Richard S. Sutton & Andrew G. Barto is like one of the, if not the, best book to learn reinforcement learning. I really enjoyed it!
Are you kidding me? Now is like the most exciting time in tech.
1. You have Dall-E coming out that can draw pictures based on description. Just imagine a AI generated story then followed by AI generated pictures based off of the story aka AI generated movie.
2. You also got Co-pilot by Github with possibility of reducing bug in code and speeding up develop time.
3. AlphaFold for drug development.
Personally, I like where tech is headed. Hope I can be on the frontier of some of these new tech.
"A mini habit is basically a much smaller version of a new habit you want to form. 100 push-ups daily is minified into one push-up daily. Writing 3,000 words daily becomes writing 50 words daily. Thinking positively all the time becomes thinking two positive thoughts per day. Living an entrepreneurial lifestyle becomes thinking of two ideas per day (among other entrepreneurial things). The foundation of the Mini Habits system is in “stupid small” steps."
I've read Tiny Habits, Atomic Habits, and a different book from Stephen Guise.
BJ Fogg's writing is much better organized than Guise's. Between Tiny and Atomic, I find Tiny covers much more conceptual ground on human behavior. The interplay of motivation, ability, and prompts is relevant even for behaviors that aren't habits. Also, Tiny covers much better the "why" and "then what" of these small habits.
Another book I would recommend that ties in nicely with Tiny Habits is The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal. She covers a lot of ground on the topic of why we do or don't do things. I think it could be a helpful debugging guide if you're struggling with a habit or behavior and need more depth than Tiny Habits.
Between all of the books mentioned though, just to be clear, Tiny Habits would be my pick if you were only going to read one. It's much more than just "make a habit of doing something really small". It's changed how I work on my own behavior and how I manage my team at work.
I never read his book, but I have taken a course by him via email. But yes, I believe they are the same thing. I think BJ Fogg has a more academic bent to it while this is a book from someone telling a story about what worked for them. I tend to like personal stories backed up with scientific evidence(I don't know if tiny habit is like that since I never read it). But, I like the practical implementation steps given in a personal story. What this book has over the stuff I was doing via email is that it is less complicated.
We haven't, but it's on the list! We've mostly stuck to the US coast and Western Caribbean, visiting the Keys, the Bahamas, a bit up North, and the stuff in between. Currently anchored in Biscayne bay (Coconut Grove), but will probably be headed down to the keys in a month or so.
There is definitely a sweet spot in learning to play chess; too much, your performance declines. My training protocol for maximal improvement(empirically derived): Practice 25 tactics, play 5 games reviewing after each game... Repeat 3 times daily. When you are reviewing the key thing for your opening is to ensure you get out perfect. Your first 10 moves should be absolutely flawless...Your next objective should be gain a tactical advantage which tend to arise by your opponent making a mistake... be patient don't force it. Once you have the advantage, rapidly trade off pieces.
My claim to fame... I drew a FIDE Master in the 2020 online Olympiad[1].[the most unlikely draw based off of ratings.]Also, had the 11th most unlikely win in that Olympiad. [2]
Also, wrote tactics app that I am kind of embarrassed to share on HN. But, here it is:
Why would I need to write a tactics app? Well, I teach it. Not all tactics are created equal. Some tactics you will not see it again in your lifetime in a real game, so why practice it. My app focuses on the common patterns. Also, I wanted a reporting function to see how much my students are practicing their tactics in one view.
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 wrote a summary/highlight of the key ideas in the book here : https://www.chestergrant.com/highlights-from-spark-how-exerc...