I curate articles from around the web that present an interesting perspective or helpful information at the intersection of technology and wellbeing. Each of these articles were featured in my January 2021 newsletter. I send out an update twice a month along with some notes on my latest work. Sign up for my newsletter here.
JANUARY I
Your Year In Review Workbook
One of the keys to getting into flow to achieve 500% productivity and accelerated learning increases is by having clear goals. That begins with solid goal stack from your transformative purpose all the way to your daily tasks.
To create you goal stack, you start with a solid assessment of your core values and beliefs, your vision for your life, and how that's intrinsically connected to how you want to make an impact. As I mentioned in the last edition of this newsletter, those are what I've walked you through creating, along with my colleague Cliff Guren of Syntopical, in what we titled Your Annual Review Workbook. It's now live and available for download here.
How Foods May Affect Our Sleep
"A growing body of research suggests that the foods you eat can affect how well you sleep, and your sleep patterns can affect your dietary choices.
Researchers have found that eating a diet that is high in sugar, saturated fat and processed carbohydrates can disrupt your sleep, while eating more plants, fiber and foods rich in unsaturated fat — such as nuts, olive oil, fish and avocados — seems to have the opposite effect, helping to promote sound sleep."
The interconnected relationship between sleep and diet is explored in this great NY Times piece by health, fitness, nutrition and epidemiology writer Anahad O’Connor (a good follow on Twitter).
We often focus on the wind-down routine for better sleep, avoiding blue light in the evening, and while that's important, the connection to diet is an area that is very much in our own power. Improving one can help you improve the other and vice versa, creating a positive cycle where they perpetuate one another.
“The best way to approach health is to emphasize a healthy diet and healthy sleep. These are two very important health behaviors that can reinforce each other.”
Jack Kornfield on the Art of Mindfulness
"So there you are doing your art, you’re playing music you’re playing ball, you’re painting your whatever it happens to be.. And then the judging mind comes. You could have done 'x' better, you should have started earlier, or you could have done this, you could have learned. All those things, and you could say, “' hate this judging. I want to get rid of, judging is terrible. No more judging. I’m going to, what was your word, eradicate that sucker. Stop judging. I hate judging.' But what’s that? It’s another judgment, right? It just piles on."
Buddhist teacher and clinical psychology Jack Kornfield shared how to acknowledge the judging and thank the judging, then say to yourself that it's not useful right now. He shared this and so much more during his conversation with high-performance psychologist Michael Gervais on the latest edition of the Finding Mastery podcast.
It's a grounding interview and another valuable edition to the collection of the Finding Mastery podcast. If you aren't listening to it yet, it gets my highest recommendation.
You can also take a free 40-day online email program with Jack Kornfield which includes short 15 min daily sessions in mindfulness and compassion that includes both a guided meditation and a teaching on a key point of practice.
Listen to Gervais' interview with Kornfield here >>
JANUARY II
Sleep is the Best Performance Enhancer There is
"If you are worried about 'optimizing' your health, well-being, or performance but you are not sleeping 7 to 9 hours per night, start there," Brad Stulberg, author of the Passion Paradox recently tweeted.
During sleep, you...
Get physically stronger
Process and store information in your brain
Renew your willpower
Sleep is a keystone habit that has a ripple effect to every part of your life. I break down how to use the Tiny Habits behavior change method to improve your sleep in this video and accompanying resource guide.
Personalized Sleep Coaching Has Arrived
Is Oura Ring the next billion-dollar wearable?
That's the question posed in the latest edition of the Fitt Insider newsletter. The Oura Ring is a sleep tracking wearable that I have written about multiple times. It's the most impactful wearable tool I've ever used. In fact, I rate it higher than an Apple Watch if I had to pick to wear just one. It's also been useful in helping to curb my anxiety around getting sick, including from COVID-19.
"Early in the pandemic, Oura learned of a user who, after receiving a low 'Readiness' score, sought medical attention for a possible COVID infection. As it turned out, Petri Hollmén did, in fact, have coronavirus (he’s since recovered).
In the months that followed, as similar stories surfaced, wearable tech companies like Oura emerged as a kind of early warning system. Leaning into this sentiment, and putting its technology to the test, Oura inked a number of high-profile partnerships with the NBA, WNBA, UFC, and NASCAR, among others.
Early studies indicate that the Oura ring could help detect coronavirus infections before symptoms occur. More specifically, temperature monitoring, heart rate variability, and respiratory rate have proven to be key metrics in predicting a possible illness."
This is what I wrote about in my post: How to Use the Oura Ring to Detect Coronavirus. While it does not replace diagnostic testing, it does give some level of peace of mind. It's something I've looked at to ease my anxiety too many times than I'd like to admit.
In this edition of the newsletter, Fitt Insider also highlights other tools emerging to help improve sleep, including Bioloop. While the app is in private beta, I was able to test it out last spring and did several experiments including looking at the impact of taking CBD for my sleep (no significant benefit) and taking a magnesium supplement (statistically significant improvement to my REM sleep).
We're all different, especially when it comes to sleep. What works for me doesn't necessarily work for you. Which is why the Oura Ring along with Bioloop is the must have sleep improvement tech stack.
I'm looking at developing a program with my colleague Dr. Alex Dimitriu from the Menlo Park Psychiatry & Sleep Medicine clinic to improve performance through the optimization of wake and sleep. Using the Oura Ring, Fitbit or Apple Health and Bioloop tools to test out sleep improvement interventions along with the latest in behavior science to build better sleep habits, this program would be designed to improve your sleep in a statistically significant way and realize the many ripple effects of better rest and recovery.
If you're interested and want to be the first to know about a program like this, please opt-in here so we can send you more information.