The pandemic of mentally bloated people

Let's get mentally ripped instead.

Years ago I watched a video called “What if animals were round?” by Rollin’ Safari. It’s hysterical. Here’s a clip.

It’s a good illustration of what I call “mental bloating.”

I first came across “mental bloating” from a channel called Better Ideas, where Joey said this:

“We are mentally bloated on information instead of being mentally fit with wisdom.”

There’s someone in your life who also needs to read that. 👆

Mental bloating is when we stuff our days and free time with cheap entertainment and superficial content. Both of which are fantastic for de-stressing and relaxing, but in small amounts. Like popcorn. Great with a movie, but not so great for breakfast. And yet, when we are starving for protein, something for our brains to cogitate on, we shovel more candy. A cheap burst of energy.

So what’s the balance? How do we know when it’s ok to indulge ourselves, and when we should read Socrates?

I’m so sorry for all of you who desperately hoped I would give an amount of time or a formula. There isn’t one.

Unless it’s zero.

Maybe it’s zero.

I don’t know.

What I do think we should set are specific times when "mental candy” is off-limits. Here’s where I draw the lines.

Mornings, evenings and focus sessions.

Mornings and evenings. In my life the first and last hour have the most leverage over my day. Think about it. These hours are consistently the most vulnerable. If I’m going to overthink something it’s almost never at 3pm. Unless something unusual happens. But at midnight, somehow my brain can spin a horror story out of a normal interaction at Starbucks. Let’s face it, most nights that’s why we scroll social media. We’re afraid to sit with our thoughts for the 20 minutes it takes to fall asleep. Unfortunantly, that often heightens our senses, making the next night even worse.

The mode in which I spend the first hour of the day is often how the rest of my day goes. What I focus on in the first hour effects my entire day whether I realize it or not. If I start my day with fractured focus, it’ll only get worse.

Focus sessions. These are completely off limits to any kind of content consumption. A focus session by definition is when I choose not to split up my focus. There’s no room for cheap hits there. It’s long and consistent.

If you start setting limits on yourself like this, something interesting will start to happen. You’ll find a different pace and the best way I know to describe it is, you’ll start feeling hungry, or unsatisfied. But mentally. And because you can’t use cheap information to fill that, you’ll start turning to what you have left. You’ll start filling that time with things you used to do, or that you do just for fun. The reason is when you remove something you will automatically move to fill that space. Sometimes we fill it with something new, but most of the time we gravitate to what we know, or used to do previously.

Ideally, you’ll start filling this time with things you need, not things you want. That’s kind of a big deal.

But we can’t just remove the fluff and expect to get mentally ripped.

After all, you don’t get abs by cutting out Doritos, although that helps. So if we want to avoid mental bloating, we have to go deep, not wide. There are tons of ways to do this, like reading, podcasts, and conversations. My personal favorite is teaching a topic to someone because it not only requires learning, but processing and expression.

The cool part about this is that it doesn’t have to be extravagant. Find something you genuinely want to learn about. Follow your curiosity. Consistent learning is so important it can even pull you out of a rut as I discuss in this video.

What happens when we start to cut the fluff back and take in more profound bits of mental food? A lot. Also, there are basically no unhealthy side effects.

You’ll start feeling better.

You’ll have more joy in your life.

You won’t be clumsy in your thinking.

You’ll be smarter.

You’ll avoid the useless trash people sell us today.

You’ll be a more interesting person.

You’ll be able to contribute to others along the way.

You’ll start to rise above the noise.

Your life will be more inside your control.

You’ll start thinking for yourself instead of what others tell you to believe.

You’ll start facing your problems instead of distracting yourself from them.

People will respect you more.

I haven’t been doing the best at this recently and I can feel it. I’m more anxious and prone to impulses. This email is more for me than anyone. It’s my processings and my action plan. I’m tired of feeling mentally obese. The other day I was telling a friend about something I deeply believe in, but found myself fumbling all over the place. I’m tired of feeling sloppy in my communication.

It’s time to change.

The time is now.

Who’s with me?

Reply with your action plan.