I’ve designated one room in my house to be an Airplane Mode room. Technically it has WiFi but whenever I’m in it I behave as if my phone didn’t have any reception. Believe it or not, actively pretending that your phone has no WiFi works better than just passively putting on airplane mode. I always get a sense of calmness when I enter.
What artificial limits do you impose on yourself that ultimately enrich your life?
I only buy mint-type candies. Junior mints until the trade war; something local now.
I need something to crush sweets cravings, but I also want to limit how much I’m actually going to eat. With the strong flavour, I find those work pretty well.
1 hour every night i can do anything i want that includes no electronics. I usually just sit and think things through and it has helped a lot with my anxiety.
After a long, unhealthy relationship, I ended up in a very promising relationship.
It took many years if half truths to her, and then full disclosures, and eventually, a full and total disclosure of my past, my desires, my weaknesses, the whole lot.
She barely flinched. She saw me for who I was / am.
From that moment we bonded deeper than I’ve ever thought possible.
Nobody could hijack us. Nothing could try to surprise us and derail / damage us. Shame was thrown out the window. There is none. We know everything. We meet as honestly as is possible each day.
Do it. I highly recommend it. However, there was a right time. If we’d done it too early, we wouldn’t have worked.
So with that backstory. Always telling the truth to my partner. No matter how scary it seems.
Truth, truth, truth.
So you are into pegging. We know brah!
It’s tots normal my man. We all are, we all love it. You were just living under a rock.
Good thing your woman has patience.
Happy for you and your dom gurl!
No caffeine multiple days in a row. I often enjoy it, and I don’t think it’s really that bad for you, but I don’t like the way it adjusts my personality and state of mind if that makes sense and it’s easy to get addicted enough to start feeling like crap if you don’t have any.
Same here, I don’t drink a lot of it compared to many but I still try to take a month long break at least once a year to ‘reset’ so it feels good again instead of needing it to just get through the day.
It’s not as bad as nicotine, but part of what’s happening is your sleep quality is declining from going without your substances. Even without cutting into the later day it’s best to avoid drinking coffee or a lot of tea all the time.
If you’re thinking about something that takes less than 2 minutes, you should just be doing it. I will admit I got this from one of those productivity guys
Actively look to “give glory” or kudos to people around you.
On a practical level, be it an opposing force opponent, or even someone on your own squad - like a family member - looking to give glory encourages me to engage with my environment on a real level when I’m drifting off or getting lost. I’m trying to connect with the intentions of others while still trying to achieve my own. These don’t have to be lose-lose situations, and they shouldn’t be either.
If I can compliment someone on a tactic or a response committed under stress, I’m trying to say I see the other person. I’m also saying honestly that the action was valid, and others can understand my position without guessing. In a world where some feel they have to live by deception or seek glory for themselves exclusively, simply validating someone else gives strength and encourages others to tough out their positions in the face of toxicity.
You’re also forcing a change of perspective, and refraining from dwelling on the faults of others or yourself.
Even if the kudos goes to the opposition, I’d rather compliment someone I believe I can work with, and build mutual respect.
no problem solving in bed when you should be resting. if something pops up, identify it & make a note (mental or otherwise) to address it at a later time.
Go outside for 3 miles a day minimum 6 days a week. Can be bike, walk, run, ski, hike, etc. I usually do quite a bit more but this has kept me in great shape and it really helps with my focus and productivity.
Mines similar, at least 20 mins walk (or slow jog/cycle if I’m feeling energetic) per day every day, but usually end up doing 45mins+ which is about 2.5-3miles. Managed to keep that up for 2 years straight now, even when ill (just about).
I have M.E/CFS & it took a good 5+ years to build up to that, symptoms are thankfully fairly mild these days, I think partly because of the daily activity, however slow I feel I need to go.
Plus also now make sure I hit 10k plus steps daily this year which has helped keep me motivated to go further on days I might have kept it to only 20 mins.
As well as helping keep a baseline of fitness it’s done wonders for my general mood & mental health overall, seem to be far more stable across the board, & I feel being out even briefly is a big part of that.
Usually in the form of asking questions:
- “Does this task take 5 minutes to do and do you have 5 minutes to spare?”
If the answer is yes, then just do it. It has helped me keep things tidy a bit better rather than spending a full day cleaning up everything. Now, if tasks get left, rather than a full day cleaning & tidying it’s only an hour or so.
My space being tidier has brought me some much needed stress relief.
- “Do you need this item right now? Can it wait until the end of the month when you get paid?”
Struggling with impulse purchases so this question has helped me stop spending as recklessly though I do relapse sometimes but nowhere near as bad as I was.
- “Got paid? Great! Have you money-potted your paycheck?”
Further aiding my financial responsibility efforts, every time I get paid I use my bank’s money-pot feature to portion it out to make sure rent, bills, phone, food, transport, subscriptions, activities, etc. are budgeted appropriately. The rest is stuffed into savings to resist the temptation to spend it.
- “What would a healthy and active person do?”
To lose weight and improve my fitness, everytime I want to get something unhealthy for lunch or dinner I ask “would someone who’s trying to lose weight eat that?” or “would a healthy person chose that fizzy drink or have water instead?”. On my way home from work I go to the gym and on the days when I don’t feel like it I ask “Would someone who’s active skip going to the gym? Sure they would if they’re feeling unwell and sick, are you feeling ill and sick? Ok you’re tired, but can you at least do 5 minutes on the treadmill?” because I don’t want to be breaking that habit that has been going really well for the last 8 months.
Honestly at the moment my life has been a bit of a rollercoaster so I’ve not been asking myself these questions and been slipping on the good habits recently, speaking of which…
- “Did you keep the habits up? No, that’s ok you stumbled a bit there. Now what small changes can you make to make the good ones easier to do and the bad ones harder to do?”
At the end of the day, I’ll take the path of least resistance so I’ve got to make sure that path is the one that will lead me to the outcomes I want. I’ll be having a think about these this weekend because I am determined to get back on track, so I’m going to sit myself down and work through it like a friend would.
Which leads me to the final question:
- “Would a friend talk/act that way to you?”
I struggle with self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth. Some days I really feel like I just have no value and the self-loathing is immense so when I get overly critical and verbally/physically beat myself up I try to hold onto a moment of calm and ask that question to myself. I don’t need to answer it because I know the answer and just need a moment to just breathe and chill to try and break the negative thought spiral.
On #6, I’ve been using a variation I read recently. “If someone said that about [friend] would you defend them?”
It has helped a lot. I’ve realized in the last month especially that the way I treat myself, the thoughts I have about myself, are borderline abusive. If I were in a relationship with someone and they expected of me what I give myself shit for doing/not doing, they’d 100% be a toxic and abusive partner. If someone openly talked about my friends the way my brain talks about me, I’d knock their teeth out. Just because it’s coming from inside doesn’t mean it’s not abusive. Don’t let your mind abuse you, because that POS will try every time if you let it.
These are some really solid rules to live by. I think I already do a couple of them in a round about way. But it’s nice seeing them listed out so clearly, & additional ones I should consider using.
I hope on your down days you can remind yourself there are others that value you in some way, even if it’s an Internet stranger appreciating a post like this. Thanks!!
Thank you
Saved this comment. Thank you, this is a great way to reframe a lot of things I struggle with.
Guess more of a reminder than a rule but: “ambiguous behaviour is not aggressive behaviour”.
Have fun
No alcohol at home. 4 drinks a day max except once a month. I’m still an alcoholic and I don’t plan to quit drinking, but my therapist and I think I’ve got it under control after 3 years of these rules.
So one AFD a month or one day unlimited?
One unlimited day. I already don’t drink most nights and I rarely ever use the unlimited day.
Setting limits like that is how I finally quit eating Percocet. First only 3 in the morning… At lunch, and again in the evening… Then 2 at lunch… Then 2 at lunch and evening… Then 2 across the board… And so on, until I was only taking 1 a day. Each step down was when I felt like it… Not necessarily on any schedule. Just when I thought I could do it. It wasn’t easy… Mind you. It was just do-able. For the record… This was down from like 3-5 at a time… Whenever I wanted them. I’m a decade sober and haven’t touched an opiate since. It took me a time to feel normal, but the only day that really sucked for a minute was the day I told myself I wasn’t going to take even my 1. Your liver will thank you. You will be proud of your accomplishment. It’s worth it.
I have chosen the easy way and went from too many every day to no alcohol at all. It’s been around a year now and I am going to double that number.
Kudos to you, setting limits feels way harder than getting to zero as, to me, zero means not thinking about it at all.
If you managed to keep those rules for 3 years that’s a good job, it needs a lot of will to not use any downside of life to break the rule.
Stop responding to text messages a much as possible after 9pm. Really helped my sleep and staying sane.
Whenever there’s elections I wait for somebody to mention the result in conversation unprompted and find out that way, to stop myself from doom scrolling
I ignore the results until they’re all in as well. The time to worry and do things is before the ballots are cast.
Don’t spend more than you can afford
