How I'm dealing with this disease.
🧠 Plus: A 2 x2 happiness framework, the wickedness of weight loss and my best health investment that's under $100.
Hey — It’s Dean.
Welcome to the 133rd consecutive edition of the PWL newsletter.
This is also my 1346th day in a row showing up to try and complete all 10 of my daily essential habits.
By repeating this perfect day 1346 times, I have managed to create something pretty remarkable for myself.
It’s never too late to make today Day 1 so you can create something remarkable for yourself 100, 1000 and 10,000 days from now.
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Here are 5 resources I discovered this week that made me happier, healthier and smarter than I was last week.
Steal shamelessly so they can do the same for you.
1/ Book I’m reading.
I was inspired to buy David’s book after listening to a fascinating discussion he had with Malcolm Gladwell here.
Here is the biggest thing from the book that has resonated with me so far.
There are two types of learning environments — kind and wicked.
A kind learning environment has 3 traits…
The rules are known and don’t change.
There are consistent patterns of behaviour.
Feedback is accurate and usually immediate.
Examples of kind learning environments are chess and golf.
A wicked environment is where…
The rules are unclear, incomplete and/or can change without notice.
There may or may not be repetitive patterns of behaviour.
Feedback is often delayed, inaccurate or both.
Examples of a wicked learning environment are poker, the stock market, and a hospital emergency room.
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Takeaway → There is a lot that can be learned from Range that can help you on your weight loss journey because, as you probably already know intuitively, weight loss is a wicked wicked learning environment.
2/ Happiness framework I love.
Sticking with the David Epstein theme, this is a framework he shared in his latest newsletter post.
The fourth quadrant is the most fascinating and something we don’t think about when it comes to expressing gratitude.
Everyone expresses it for what they have. No one expresses gratitude for the things they don’t want and are lucky enough not to have.
Here are some things I should be grateful for that I never thought of previously…
I don’t have cancer or any other life threatening disease.
I don’t suffer from mental illness.
I don’t live in a war-torn country.
I don’t have to deal with the trauma of any kind of abuse.
I was born in a first world country where I have access to clean drinking water, free health care and quality education.
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Takeaway → I’m a big fan of David’s writing and subscribe to his newsletter, which I read as soon as it hits my inbox. If interested, you can subscribe —> here.
3/ Youtube video that brought me joy.
Sticking with the happiness theme, I stumbled upon this TedTalk by Harvard Professor and social scientist, Arthur Brooks.
Here are a few screen shots I saved that really resonated from his talk.
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Takeaway → What we think makes us happy is often not what actually makes us happy. And nowhere is that more evident than the pursuit of weight loss. There are some gems in this talk that will serve you well as you seek to find happiness on your journey to achieving your ideal body weight.
4/ Disease I have that I’m looking to cure.
So I have something called Willis-Ekbom Disease. To be honest, it’s an extremely unsexy and overly dramatic name for the condition I suffer from.
Its more common name is Restless Leg Syndrome or RLS for short.
This is how it affects me.
When I go to bed, my legs get antsy to the point where I have to get up and move them.
And it gets so bad that it wakes me up. On a typical night it will wake me up 4 to 6 times.
When this happens I have to get up and walk around for awhile. That can range from a few minutes to half an hour or more.
I think I have had this my whole life. As a kid I used to get on my hands and knees and rock myself to sleep. My mom said I used to rock so violently that they had to take the wheels off my crib because I would rock that sucker right across the room and pound it against the wall.
Translation! I was not a fun baby to have. I’m still surprised my parents didn’t leave me in a cardboard box on a church door step.
My condition (I prefer not to call it a disease) has gotten a bit worse over the last few years.
It started about 5 years ago when I went through a stretch where I would go to bed at 11pm and wake up around 1am and not be able to get back to sleep until 4am or 5am.
That did a number on me psychologically. Things got so bad I started fearing going to bed. It led to a week where I was so anxiety ridden that as soon as I woke up I would head to a 24 hour coffee shop and hang out there from 1am to 4am before coming home and finally falling asleep.
Side note: There are some very “interesting” characters that hang out at a coffee shop between the hours of 1am to 4am.
Fast forward to today and I have taught myself how to roll with this condition without it making me go coo coo bananas.
However, this past week I made a decision.
At present, science has no idea what causes RLS or how to cure it.
I have decided that I am not going to wait for science. I’m going to start doing my own research, running my own experiments and tracking my results with the goal of eliminating my condition.
The first step I have taken is to create a sleep journal to keep an accurate record of everything I am doing and experiencing.
My next step is to do research with the hopes of finding someone who has cured themselves of this problem — because I believe someone out there has already figured this thing out.
That’s where I am presently at.
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Takeaway → With every problem we face, there are always two paths. Accept the outcome or do everything in our power to try and solve it. I prefer the latter. Even if I never figure out how to eliminate my condition, the journey will be well worth it.
5/ Sleep aid I’m investing in.
Sticking with the sleep theme, I just purchased this white noise maker for $70 to help improve the quality of my sleep.
I love investments like these because they are…
portable
affordable
and the impact lasts for years and decades after the purchase is made.
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Question → What’s the best health investment you have made for under $100?
That is all for today.
See you next Sunday my friend.
And hey — keep being awesome.
Dean 🇨🇦
If you are looking for more, here’s how I can help.
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I have lost 23% of unwanted Dean and it has transformed my entire life.
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