i actually tried using defensive cooldowns and tracked the results in an excel spreadsheet for 6 months
TODO: add information on methodology
in theory, easiest to use are:
- spa day (cold shower)
- thera blast (massage gun)
- quick jam (listen to music)
- mood lighting (change the lighting)
- rubber person (stretch)
in practice, easiest to use are:
- spa day
- the outdoors (go outside)
- hypoventilation (deep breath + hold breath)
- the wim hof (cold shower)
- dirty thirty (some small amt of exercise)
- gigahydrate (drink a lot of water)
reasons:
- dont know where massage gun is / forgot about it
- music disrupts what im doing, if im listening through an album or producing or watching videos
- changing the lighting is not always practical depending on time of day
- stretching requires me to get up from my desk, at which point exercise or going outside is only marginally harder but more impactful
- taking a hot shower at night is difficult because it makes my skin dry and irritated
ultimately these things only really have strong immediate effects for a few minutes to an hour at most. the real power is in:
- making them into highly regular habits to periodically break low dopamine loops
- using gained energy to continue comboing into each other (possibly indefinitely)
- marginal health-related effects
- setting up more complicated systems that increase overall well-being in the long run