Life Hacks 102

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (wind blowing) Right. Uh, so…

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      (wind blowing) Right. Uh, so life hacks number two.

   2. YSYusef Smith0:10

      Number two.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:11

      You're waving around. What are you waving?

   4. JWJonny Watson0:13

      I don't know. Just making-

   5. CWChris Williamson0:14

      A peace sign. Peace, listeners. Peace. Um, okay, so I'm going to open up. On the last episode, I mentioned that I would be talking about Sleep Cycle, and that is going to be my first one today. So Sleep Cycle is an app that you use for tracking sleep. Um, you set an alarm last thing at night, and it presumes that that is the final thing that you do. So it calls that your sleep, uh, your going to bedtime. It then tracks when you wake up on a morning, sets an alarm off. Um, you can give it a window of time between an hour and 10 minutes during which it uses the motion sensor in your phone to detect your, your motion sensor or the microphone to detect the depth of sleep that you're in. And it tries to find a time to wake you when you are closest to light sleep. That feature, for me, I don't use an awful lot, but I know it can be pretty effective. The thing that I like the most is just tracking the amount of time that I've been asleep. I've used it for 1,200 plus nights now, so I've been doing it since 2018.

   6. YSYusef Smith1:14

      Big data collection there.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:15

      Yes.

   8. YSYusef Smith1:16

      So your correlates will be, will be very accurate now as well.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:21

      It's un- it's unbelie- Are you still using it?

   10. YSYusef Smith1:23

       Not recently.

   11. CWChris Williamson1:24

       Right. Okay, so-

   12. YSYusef Smith1:24

       Should explain what the correlates are, I suppose, as well.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:26

       Yeah. So the amount of data that it tracks to do with your sleep is unbelievable. So it associates the weather, the air temperature, the pressure, the moon's position.

   14. YSYusef Smith1:38

       (laughs)

   15. CWChris Williamson1:39

       Um, the location that, um, geographic location that you're in based on your phone's location services. It literally uses everything and then plots it against how good was your sleep. So it uses the length of time that you were asleep, plus the depth of sleep determined by either the microphone or the motion sensor, and then works out a quality of sleep that's based on a percentage. That percentage then gets plotted against all the other bits and pieces, and then it shows you an average of your time over the last week, over month, over all time. And it also tells you people in your country what their average is, so on and so forth. So if you're a bit of a, um, the sort of person who likes to drill down the data on that sort of thing, you can really get into it. And even if you don't, it tells you how long you've been asleep and what the effects on your sleep are. So I know that when it's a non-full moon, whatever the opposite is, like nonexistent moon.

   16. YSYusef Smith2:32

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson2:32

       What is it?

   18. YSYusef Smith2:32

       Uh, crescent moon or like-

   19. CWChris Williamson2:34

       No, lower than that.

   20. JWJonny Watson2:35

       Half moon.

   21. CWChris Williamson2:35

       No, lower than that.

   22. JWJonny Watson2:36

       Quarter moon. Shit moon.

   23. CWChris Williamson2:38

       Shit moon. No moon. When there's no moon, um, my sleep goes up by 2%.

   24. YSYusef Smith2:42

       Blue moon.

   25. CWChris Williamson2:43

       No, that's twice in-

   26. JWJonny Watson2:43

       No (laughs) .

   27. CWChris Williamson2:43

       That's twice in the same month.

   28. YSYusef Smith2:45

       Is it?

   29. CWChris Williamson2:45

       And we've, we've had two of them this year. So we had one-

   30. JWJonny Watson2:47

       Is it once in a blue moon?
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   ... is really negative.…

   1. CWChris Williamson15:00

      when you don't even know how to perform an empty bar deadlift. You go in and you do the basics first and you get a coach. Guided meditation is an easy way to start off that journey. You sit down, you press a button on the app, and you listen to what they say. Exactly the same way as you would do with the ROM work that we spoke about last time, that you go through the poses. These are mental poses or mental states that it asks you to go through, thought experiments. And over time, as you move through different packs, you are given less, uh, fewer and fewer cues, and you allow yourself to be more in control of your brain rather than, uh, the impetus coming from outside in. It tracks stuff like daily streaks. There's loads and loads of different packs. There's ones for anxiety, sport performance, creativity at work, family, relationships, all manner of different things. And you can choose between three-minute and thir- uh, three-minute and 20-minute sessions for the most part. Um, for me, I've moved through different guided meditation courses. But the one that I keep coming back to the most has been Headspace. And I think the length of the sessions is good. The fact that there's so many and they're all different with a little bit of different introduction is really, really good. And I like the visualizations that he uses. A lot of the ones I f- I genuinely do feel. So he does some about warm, uh, warm sun filling up the body. He does a lot of check-ins with the body as well, which is nice. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's definitely, definitely one of my favorite resources and it's free again as well. You can get a free trial so you can see whether or not you like it. Um, meditation apps, what's your- Well, t- two things just on what you've said. I think having, the thing you mentioned about having a backup of the, of meditation to fall back on. Mm-hmm. Something else that I do with the, with that habits tracking is that a- all, every habit I do has a scaled version. Mm-hmm. Because I think having, being able to maintain, I think the psychology of breaking your streak with something- Yeah.

   2. JWJonny Watson16:51

      ... is really negative.

   3. CWChris Williamson16:52

      Yeah.

   4. JWJonny Watson16:52

      So again, negative thing, like, because you've skipped a day, you're less likely to do it again the next day.

   5. CWChris Williamson16:57

      Mm-hmm.

   6. JWJonny Watson16:57

      Because the hav- you haven't got that wave of-

   7. CWChris Williamson16:59

      You get the catastrophic thinking, right?

   8. JWJonny Watson17:01

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   9. I've been, I've eaten all, I've eaten this cake, now I'll finish the packet.

   10. CWChris Williamson17:03

       Exactly. Whereas if you've meditated for five days in a row, you're more and more likely to hit the sixth day, seventh day- Yeah.

   11. JWJonny Watson17:08

       ... seventeenth day.

   12. CWChris Williamson17:09

       Yeah.

   13. JWJonny Watson17:10

       Um, meditating, I think I also started with Headspace, did the, is it Ten and Ten, Take 10?

   14. CWChris Williamson17:17

       Yeah.

   15. JWJonny Watson17:18

       Um, it is a great introduction. I think, uh, I've since moved away from it. I, fro- from what I did, I don't, I can't speak for what it's like now. When I was doing it, I feel like he made a big deal about, y'know you- "So it's day three, are you feeling anything yet?"

   16. CWChris Williamson17:34

       Yeah. Yeah.

   17. JWJonny Watson17:35

       Like-

   18. CWChris Williamson17:35

       I feel like, you know, it was like you've done 100 minutes of meditation by the end of Take, of Take 10, you know, that's enough to change your brain and things like that.

   19. JWJonny Watson17:42

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson17:42

       And I remember thinking, "I must be doing it wrong because I don't feel any changes."

   21. JWJonny Watson17:47

       Mm-hmm.

   22. CWChris Williamson17:47

       I think it, it vastly, a lot of the apps, Calm's the same, so I've tried-

   23. JWJonny Watson17:52

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CWChris Williamson17:52

       ... some of the Calm subscriptions. They vastly underplay the, the time it takes, the investment it takes-

   25. JWJonny Watson18:00

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson18:00

       ... to actually get to the point where you're like, "Okay-"

   27. JWJonny Watson18:03

       (clears throat) I totally agree.

   28. CWChris Williamson18:03

       "... I can feel some change from meditation." So-

   29. JWJonny Watson18:06

       I totally agree.

   30. CWChris Williamson18:06

       Which I see, I see why they're doing that, like if they just delivered this negative, like, "Guys, buckle down." Because you, you hear- If you don't have an hou- if you don't have an hour to sit down, you can just fuck off.
3. 30:00 – 39:23

   (laughs) …

   1. YSYusef Smith30:00

      some... It's all one big prank-"

   2. JWJonny Watson30:01

      (laughs)

   3. YSYusef Smith30:01

      "... to get me to sit and listen to my breath for-"

   4. JWJonny Watson30:05

      Crossed my mind.

   5. CWChris Williamson30:05

      Yeah.

   6. JWJonny Watson30:06

      Well, you know, all right, so we did a podcast on this-

   7. CWChris Williamson30:08

      Yeah.

   8. JWJonny Watson30:08

      ... on the Propain podcast about your experience and I s... I raised, you know, what if?

   9. CWChris Williamson30:13

      'Cause it's all just a load of hooey.

   10. JWJonny Watson30:14

       Because you said before-

   11. YSYusef Smith30:15

       Mm-hmm.

   12. JWJonny Watson30:15

       ... give it 100 hours before you decide. So 100 hours you are never getting back-

   13. YSYusef Smith30:19

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson30:19

       Exactly.

   15. JWJonny Watson30:19

       ... if you get there and you're like, "What a load of bollocks."

   16. CWChris Williamson30:21

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JWJonny Watson30:21

       So having some way, like as a, you know, anything else you do, like whether you... If you were saving money every month but you never looked at your savings, it'd be a pretty dreary existence-

   18. CWChris Williamson30:31

       (laughs)

   19. JWJonny Watson30:31

       ... wouldn't it? Like if you, if you're trying to lose weight but you never measured-

   20. CWChris Williamson30:34

       Not a good example. (laughs)

   21. JWJonny Watson30:35

       ... measured your weight, then-

   22. YSYusef Smith30:36

       And there's no way around it. And, and this is why you need buy-in because it really now-

   23. CWChris Williamson30:39

       For sure.

   24. YSYusef Smith30:40

       Only at 450 hours am I able to say-

   25. JWJonny Watson30:43

       You're pretty convinced, aren't you?

   26. YSYusef Smith30:44

       ... unequivocally (laughs)

   27. CWChris Williamson30:44

       But you're asking, you're asking... We come back to state and trait here, right?

   28. YSYusef Smith30:48

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson30:48

       Because you definitely feel better while you are meditating.... because you have a level of calm that you wouldn't have when you're not meditating. I think getting a trait s- change, which is outside of the meditation, is affecting your day-to-day, uh, head space, for want of a better word. That's a lot more difficult to elicit.

   30. YSYusef Smith31:06

       It is.

Episode duration: 39:24