Tag: Health

• Why You Need to Be More Like a Sea Cucumber (Yes, Really)

  Sea cucumbers shock and attack oncoming predators by spraying out their internal organs (which can be toxic) out of their butthole.

  

  This entangles and can also injure the attacking predator, allowing the sea cucumber to escape for safety.

  The sea cucumbers’ internal organs regenerate within days and weeks.

  Nature works in mysterious ways.

  Why I’m telling you this

  You and I may not be sea cucumbers, but we are threatened in many different ways, ie spiritually, mentally and to a lesser extent, physically.

  And instead of protecting ourselves with our internal organs like the sea cucumber, we need to use our minds.

  What to remove from your life

  • Bad habits
  • People who don’t want the best for you
  • Idleness
  • Anything that is a detriment to your health
  • Sin & vices
  • Putting off your life’s mission

  Bad habits

  Avoid habits like excessive alcohol consumption, smoking, overeating and drugs. 

  These habits offer nothing to your life. To really grow, you first need to let go of what no longer serves you.

  People who don’t want the best for you

  I’m talking about people who encourage you down the wrong paths, people who put you down, and people who have no concern for wasting their own lives, so they’ll definitely have no concern for wasting yours.

  Focus on how you feel around certain people. Do you feel uplifted or drained?

  Avoid the unhappy and the unlucky, otherwise they will infect you with their unhappiness.

  Idleness

  I believe this is the most subtle yet destructive behaviour we can engage in.

  Lying around watching ‘friends’ on repeat may seem like it doesn’t cause any harm.

  But in fact it does.

  When you waste time, you never get it back; it’s gone forever.

  I know how valuable time is now, so I schedule my idleness (or laziness).

  I can be idle once I’ve achieved everything for the day, and every Sunday.

  You can’t be busy all the time.

  Anything that is a detriment to your health

  When you fail to exercise, eat healthily and get the required amount of sleep, you are slowly killing yourself.

  Eat healthily, drink enough water, work out, and sleep 8 hours every night, and your body will thank you.

  Sin & vice

  I’ve already touched upon idleness, but other sins are just as destructive, such as:

  • Lust (ie watching porn, masturbating and pointless sexual encounters).
  • Gluttony ( overeating and becoming fat).
  • Wrath ( getting angry and losing your temper). How can you control your life if you can’t control yourself?
  • Pride ( excessive love of oneself, thereby making yourself the centre of the universe; these people are the worst to be around).
  • Sloth ( idleness and being lazy).
  • Envy ( being sad because others are prospering).
  • Greed ( an excessive desire for money, wealth and other material things. You never have enough).

  Putting off your life’s mission

  Only when you let go of everything that doesn’t serve you do you open up a narrow space to pursue your unique mission in life.

  Part of the battle is just making way for that space for you to grow.

  I would say that’s the most challenging part.

  The sea cucumber releases a seemingly essential but also unnecessary part of itself to protect its future self

  You need to do the same.

  How I practice this advice

  I was addicted to pride and had to let it go to protect my future self. Here was how it manifested.

  I was addicted to bodybuilding and lifting weights. I wanted to be the most muscle-bound person I could be, so I lifted ultra-heavy weights, so much so that I injured my right wrist, which has resulted in me having to undergo two separate wrist surgeries. To protect my future self, I’ve had to part ways with this unhealthy bodybuilding obsession.

  How I practice this advice 2.

  As a teen growing up with the internet, I was addicted to porn.

  This unhealthy obsession was getting in the way of romantic relationships and was wasting a lot of time. I had to part ways with porn to protect my future self.

  The bottom line

  Like a sea cucumber that ejects what it doesn’t need to survive and regenerate, we must let go of harmful habits, toxic people, and distractions to protect and grow our future selves.

  I share ideas that challenge how you think and help you grow — all for free.

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  26th Nov 2025

  Christianity, Health, improvement, self improvement, wisdom

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• 5 Bullet Friday 26/09/2025

  5 Things worth sharing this week:

  How To Sleep Better

  Walk between 8000-10,000 steps per day (preferably in the sunlight) will make you feel tired ( exposure to sunlight helps reset your circadian rhythm, which is your natural body clock, which enables you to feel wakeful in the morning and tired at night).

  How I’m Trying To Build Myself Spiritually

  I’m reading two pages of the Bible every night before bed.

  To understand the deeper metaphorical and spiritual meanings, I’m trying to understand the verses myself, but if I need extra help, I ask ChatGPT.

  All this is helping me see the profound wisdom in the Bible and is making me understand why it has lasted for two millennia.

  A Thought I’ve Had

  We all strive to acquire more things or to become more, but how many of us attempt to become a better, more virtuous person?

  Some Wisdom On Dating And Marriage

  Proverbs 21:19 (NIV):

  “Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and nagging wife.”

  The Worst Advice I Ever Had

  “Don’t go to the dentist, it’s a scam”.

  It doesn’t need to be said, but visiting the dentist and getting regular check-ups is essential for maintaining your oral health.

  It’s better to be proactive and get check-ups rather than being reactive and only getting treatment when it might be too late.

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  26th Sep 2025

  goals, Health, improvement, life, mental-health

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• 5-Bullet Friday 19/09/2025

  Something I’ve been thinking about: 

  We learn about others far more when they react to challenges than when everything is going smoothly.

  A quote I like: “This too shall pass”.

  Another quote I like by Seneca: “The outcome of violent anger is a mental raving, and therefore anger is to be avoided not for the sake of moderation but for the sake of sanity.”

  When exercising, make it as low-risk and as least taxing as possible, thereby giving you more time and energy to use your mind.

  A question to ask yourself ( and every day):

  Am I better than I was yesterday?

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  19th Sep 2025

  5-bullet Friday, goals, Health, improvement, life

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• If You Can’t Be Happy Now You’ll Never Be

  “Not happy he who thinks himself not so.”

  This quote is one that Seneca quotes (from an unknown poet) in Letters from a Stoic, though Seneca’s original quote is:

  “a man is unhappy, though he reigns the world over, if he does not consider himself supremely happy.”

  And I think Seneca is absolutely correct.

  If we cannot be happy with our lot in life now, when can we be?

  I guarantee that if you say, “I’m happy when I get this car or this house, etc., “ when you get what you want, the goal posts will move even more.

  “What a shame it is to get what we wanted”. – anonymous

  I heard the above quote somewhere, yet I can’t remember the source.

  But it points to the fact that we tend to vastly overestimate how we will feel when we achieve a given goal.

  Seneca also talks about how the best part of a work of art is the painting and not the underwhelming feeling of it being finished and then moving on to the next piece of artwork. 

  Finishing anything is such a small part of the whole process.

  Seneca also wrote that when children are raised, seeing them flourish in the world as adults is pleasant, but it’s a byproduct of raising and caring for them in infancy.

  And that it’s the raising and caring for children in their infant years that is looked upon most fondly ( I hear this echoed amongst many parents).

  The Takeaway is that we should be happy with what we have. Yes, it’s fine to have goals and strive for them, but chronically being unhappy with your lot in life and always wanting more is a disease.

  We should care more about sowing and less about reaping.

  Things can always be better, but they can also be worse. If we want peace, we need to think of the latter.

  A quick story:

  Almost a year ago, I had wrist surgery to repair torn cartilage.

  For the first six months after surgery, all was going well, then as I was pulling my car door (which I’ve done many times after surgery), I felt a pull and as a consequence pain in my wrist.

  This pain has continued even while I write these words, and it’s looking ever more likely I’ll need to undergo wrist surgery again.

  I’ve been feeling down in the dumps and repeating in my mind, “I just want my wrist to be normal again”.

  But this has been making me suffer more.

  So, I’ve thought to myself, “There is always someone worse off than me.”

  I think of the poor children in Gaza, god bless them, who are suffering unimaginable horror and going through much worse than I.

  When I think about my injury in this context, it’s made my wrist pain much more sufferable. 

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  16th Sep 2025

  Health, inspiration, philosophy, seneca, stoicism

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• 5-Bullet Friday 15/08/2025

  5 things worth sharing this week.

  1. Never care about someone’s opinion who you don’t respect or who can’t even live up to their own standards.
  2. For religious people, the quote “only god can judge me” can provide one with great strength and resilience. It means you weigh yourself up against something else, something beyond this world, and nothing on this earth can affect you. For non-religious folk, this can be better thought of as “no one can judge me apart from myself”, which is still helpful.
  3. Street smarts are real. In this world, there are doers and intellectuals yet idiots (IYIS), as Nassim Taleb says. We should only listen to the doers (people with skin in the game) because they are the only ones who take the world forward.  
  4. Set the world on fire. Tell people what they ought to hear, not what they want to hear, live according to your unwavering values and wage war against what threatens those values. The truth isn’t always comfortable. We aren’t born to make friends, we’re born to make a difference. But when we stand for something, we naturally attract others who stand for the same values and make friends as a byproduct.
  5. “If you see fraud and don’t say fraud, you are a fraud.”- Nassim Taleb – my note on this is that when you encounter something inherently bad and ignore it rather than standing up for what’s right, you are part of the problem. There is clearly good and evil in this world, and we need to call out what’s evil, for example, the killing of so many Palestinians by Israel, led by Netanyahu. This mass murder needs to stop.

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  15th Aug 2025

  5-bullet Friday, goals, Health, improvement, mental-health, newsletter

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• 5-Bullet Friday 08/08/2025

  5 things worth sharing this week.

  1. Quote of the week: “ But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you…. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them.” – Luke 6:27-32 – my note on this – love is a choice. If we want to make the world a better place, we need to do it out of a place of love. Love is contagious and will help you make a much more positive impact on people’s lives than if you came from a place of hate.
  2. Never be heard complaining, even to yourself. Complaining never makes things better; we can either look for and implement positive solutions to our problems, or we don’t. We don’t have to fight against the present and complain. If we do complain, it makes the situation even harder to face. Marcus Aurelius said in Meditations, “Don’t be overheard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.” I agree.
  3. A 30-minute walk can cure most of our neuroses. That’s why I walk every day. Movement is medicine.
  4. When someone criticises an action you’ve done or something you’ve said or posted, there is a chance to improve. When someone attacks your character personally with nothing helpful to say, they’re subconsciously acting out jealousy and envy. In both situations, you’re on the right path. The first situation brings awareness that we can always be better. In the second situation, we know we’re on the right path because if we’re arousing envy and jealousy in others, we must be doing something right, see it as a compliment. 
  5. I regularly think about the quote “Those who talk should do and only those who do should talk” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. When I read books or listen to someone’s advice before implementing it, I make sure they have a body of work that shows they’ve firstly used that advice themselves and secondly that it actually works. Talk is only good to the extent that it’s backed up by actions.

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  8th Aug 2025

  5-bullet Friday, goals, Health, improvement, life, mental-health, newsletter

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• 5-Bullet Friday 25/7/25

  5 things worth sharing this week.

  1. Rig the game so you win.

  How many of us set ourselves up for failure?

  How many people set themselves a goal but never accomplish it?

  I would say many people do this ( including myself).

  For example, I’ve had a hard time sticking to writing, but I’ve made my writing habit so easy to stick to that it’s almost impossible not to stick to it.

  Heres what I do:

  Instead of committing to an unreasonable goal like writing for several hours per day, I’ve set myself the goal of writing for at least 30 minutes every other day and writing a total of 300 words (each day), which I find very easy to stick to.

  With fitness, I do the same. I only train with weights 3 times per week, simply because it’s much more sustainable.

  Whatever goal you want to achieve, make it almost impossible not to achieve it. That usually means starting small and making your goal realistic.

  2. It’s the simple things that matter the most 

  Things like sitting with a cup of tea or coffee, walking in nature, feeling well-rested after a good night’s sleep, having money in the bank and most importantly, having your health and spending time with friends and family.

  The small things matter the most. Life is simple when you focus on the small things.

  3. You will always have problems, but the key is to have problems you want to solve.

  I recently got a new bathroom in my house, and it looks great, but now the rest of my house looks dated.

  I’d rather have the problem of some of my house looking dated than all of it.

  4. It’s not over till it’s over.

  You might feel like you’ve messed up in life, and I know I have in some areas.

  If you’re reading this, you’re breathing; if you’re breathing, you’re alive and can do something about your life.

  It’s not over till it’s over.

  5. Stay Present by doing so you avoid being wholly controlled by your mind.

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  25th Jul 2025

  5-bullet Friday, goals, Health, improvement, life, newsletter

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• No, Eating At Night Won’t Make You Fat

  I had an ex-girlfriend who wouldn’t eat after 6 p.m. She thought eating at night made her body more likely to store fat.

  I’ve personally lost a lot of fat ( over 30 pounds), yet when I told her the science behind losing body fat, she still wouldn’t listen.

  Alas, she never ended up losing weight.

  You see, to lose body fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit ( eat fewer calories than you burn).

  Because your body consumes fewer calories than it needs, it burns your body fat stores to make up for the calories you’re not consuming.

  You will lose body fat like clockwork if you consistently maintain a calorie deficit.

  For example, here’s how I burn a pound of fat weekly.

  I need to eat 2500 calories every day to maintain my weight.

  If I put myself in a 500-calorie deficit, eating 2000 calories daily for a week, I’d be in a weekly calorie deficit of 3500 calories ( because  7×500=3500).

  And in a pound of fat, there are roughly 3500 calories.

  So as long as I eat 2000 calories daily, I lose a pound of fat weekly.

  It doesn’t matter when I eat those calories; all that matters is that I don’t go above 2500 calories ( my total daily energy expenditure, TDEE) and don’t gain weight.

  We gain weight when we eat more calories than we burn.

  You Only Gain Body Fat When You Overconsume

  If you are eating more calories than you burn, then it doesn’t matter if you don’t eat at night; you’re certain to gain weight.

  Weight gain works similarly to a calorie deficit but in reverse.

  Say you eat 500 calories more than you burn every day over the week.

  In that case, you’ll gain roughly a pound of body fat weekly.

  Because a pound of fat contains 3,500 calories, 7 x 500 calories = 3,500 calories gained per week.

  This fat storage will go straight to your belly ( especially if you don’t exercise or lift weights).

  The Bottom Line

  Many people don’t understand how energy balance works. I hope this article can help free these people from the chains of not eating after 6 P.M.

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  12th Jul 2025

  eating at night, fasting, fitness tips, Health, health tips, improvement

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• Why You Shouldn’t Do Weighted Chin-Ups Or Weighted Pull-Ups

  Last year, I needed to get surgery on my wrist because I tore my cartilage in my wrist after performing weighted chin-ups.

  I’m writing this post because I don’t want you to get injured like I did.

  I was in chronic pain due to getting this injury, and being in pain every day was tough.

  Here’s how my injury occurred.

  I was working out at the gym. The workout was a pull day, during which I trained my back and biceps.

  I started the workout with deadlifts, then barbell rows, and then weighted chin-ups.

  I warmed up for deadlifts, so usually, once I do this, I’m warmed up for my other exercises.

  Although to perform weighted chin-ups I attached a 15kg plate to my waist using a belt with a chain ( to attach a weight plate to my body), I was performing six reps with 15kg attached to my waist. Unfortunately, I felt a pop in my wrist mid-set, and the cartilage was torn.

  It took me a year to get a diagnosis and to get my wrist fixed surgically.

  What To Do So You Don’t Suffer The Same Fate As Me

  1. Never do weighted chin-ups or pull-ups; only use your body weight. If you can do 20 pull-ups or chin-ups in a row, you’ll have incredible back and bicep strength.
  2. If you’re not strong enough to perform bodyweight chin-ups and pull-ups, I recommend using the lat pulldown until you can perform the lat pulldown of your body weight for three sets of 10 reps. If you can do that, you should be fine to perform bodyweight chin-ups and pull-ups.

  I Stay Away From Doing Chin Ups And Pull Ups Now

  This is because it’s easier to control a lighter weight on a lat pulldown than using your body weight straight out of the bat.

  Also, warming up for lat pulldowns is easier than warming up for pull-ups or chin-ups.

  With pull-ups or chin-ups, you can’t start off any lighter than your body weight during your warm-up sets.

  Using the lat pulldown, you can reduce the weight to as little as 5kg or even lower.

  Now, I always warm up for lat pull-downs and don’t perform pull-ups or chin-ups.

  I recommend that you do the same if you want to reduce your risk of injury. 

  I also don’t lift ultra-heavy anymore. I won’t do any sets heavier than eight reps ( about 80% of my one rep max). 

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  6th Jul 2025

  back day, biceps, chin ups, chin-up, Health, improvement, lat pulldown, life, mental-health, pull ups, TFCC, tfcc tear, wrist injury

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• The Benefits I Experience From Fasting

  Recently, I’ve started fasting several days per week.

  I don’t do long 24—to 48-hour fasts; I merely fast between 16 and 20 hours per day (24-hour period). This means no food or calories are consumed during these fasting periods.

  Detachment From Food ( And Other Pleasures)

  Delicious food is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

  But getting consumed by this pleasure can foster vices such as greed and gluttony, which can negatively affect one’s life and health.

  In the United Kingdom, over two-thirds of the population is overweight.

  And the only reason people are overweight is because they eat or drink too much and don’t move enough.

  Fasting is a way to practice virtues like patience and moderation and avoid acting out vices like greed and gluttony (which contribute to obesity).

  Of course, fasting is all about giving up the pleasures of eating for a certain period, but fasting also teaches you to be more patient and less greedy in all areas of life.

  It’s A way To Give Your Digestive System A Break

  During your time fasting, you’ll experience no bloating, no excessive gas, or any of the things associated with eating a lot of food.

  Experience Better Clarity And Focus

  While fasting, the stress hormone cortisol spikes. In hunter-gatherer times, this spike in cortisol is our bodies telling us we need to go and find some food or hunt an animal to eat.

  This powerful cortisol spike can help us focus better on our work or other creative pursuits.

  Doing Difficult Things Like Fasting Helps Us Build Discipline

  Fasting isn’t easy. You’ll get hangry (hungry and angry) and want to reach for the pizza, but just know that your ability to let go of these temptations helps to build discipline and self-confidence. The more difficult things we do, the more other difficult things we can do; it’s a virtuous cycle.

  Humans aren’t Meant To Eat 24/7

  In hunter-gatherer times, you might eat one day and then wait several days until your next hunt to eat again. Our bodies are built to perform under a fasted state; it’s in our DNA. Try fasting, and I guarantee it will feel natural the more you do it, and I guarantee you’ll experience the benefits.

  Click here to join my 5-bullet Friday newsletter. Every Friday, I share five thoughts, insights, quotes, products, recommendations, etc. that have helped me and might also help you.

  5th Jul 2025

  Buddhism, fasting, Health, improvement, intermittent fasting, life, spirituality, vice, virtue

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