🧠 Simple neuroscience trick to boost alertness and productivity ⋆ 📰 Good news from 2022 ⋆ 🪴Grow into your best self

I've been deep-diving into the latest and greatest AI advances, running large models on my laptop, and it feels like I'm just scratching the surface. Spoiler alert - I am.

Here are some ways I've been coping 😛

Thing 1 - Simple neuroscience trick to feel refreshed

And this is what I'm doing right now. Plus playing Pump It.

• Look up (raise your eyes toward the ceiling)
• Keep your eyes open
• Hold that for 10-15 seconds

To make this more integrated into your workflow you can position your computer screen at (or above) eye level.

This must be the simplest trick I've shared so far...

Why does this work?

Depending on your level of alertness it will be easy or hard to keep your eyes open. And there are circuits in your brain that control that.

Those circuits act in loops - when you look up it creates a wakefulness signal for the brain. This is grounded in some of the most hard-wired aspects of our neural circuitry.

It's not a substitute for sleep (go figure) but it does help.

(source)

Thing 2 - 99 good news from 2022

The world didn't fall apart this year. You just got your news from the wrong places.

You're hard-wired to react more to danger than to bliss. News outlets and social media somehow end up optimizing for that. Gotta get your clicks to make that sweet, sweet ad money.

If you're a long-time 3-in-3 subscriber, you're already ahead of the crowd.
You've already seen some of the rad stuff that took place last 12 months.

But there's been, oh, so much more...

Some of these include

• expansion of biosphere reserve in Mexico
• recovering coral in Raja Ampat Archipelago
• a bunch of different diseases eliminated from African countries
• cancer death rates fell by a lot in the US, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Rwanda
• 19 European countries accelerated their decarbonization plans
• the global solar industry produced 45% more panels in 2022 than in 2021
• air quality improved in US, Europe, and China, preventing many deaths
• ...

Future Crunch reports 99 of those in a mammoth article (25-minute read), split into these sections so you can jump in:

• Human rights
• Conservation
• Global Health
• Decarbonization
• Development
• Animals

Thing 3 - Grow into your best self: Solve your life's greatest challenges

Assume that every problem you face can be solved by the smartest version of yourself, then make the effort to grow into that person.

- Orange Book

This simple assumption gives you permission to not have a solution to everything at this very moment.

This frees you from finding solutions in your current knowledge base. You get to go and become someone who knows better and has the solution.

As a "thank you" to your future self, for solving your problems, put in the effort to learn and improve. They'd want you to.

Cheers, Zvonimir