I take it we have some self aware folks here with good study habits. What is your tried and true receipe for health? Any rare supplements? Special diet tweak you’ve made? Tricks for healing or muting the pain from injuries? Treatments for mood disturbances?

This was inspired by a thread linking gut biome and bipolar mood stability and instability so I figured I would ask here and then we can just include any random thing and not go off the tracks.

Exercise every other day is vital for my energy levels to spike. There really is no cheating or going around it. As for the pains from exercise while at work? THC baby! If it werent for that my muscle pain after heavy lifting or long distance jogging would be more acute. I also plow through homework high (5 classes this semestsr...), though its not recommended I find that it makes it fun.

hobbies.

In my case, it’s analytical chemistry. I do it when I go to work, I do it when I get home. I do it on my days off.
It’s more than a profession/education. To me, it’s a way of life.

find that passion in your life, that provides more than satisfaction (which is temporary), but really sustains happiness.

On the Daily
Surya Namaskara
Baduanjin qigong
Nianfo
Zazen
Gong Fu Cha
Muesli
Misoshiru

noopept is nice. so is adrafinil. I’d start with the former.

studying is more of a learned behavior, you have to address that first, as a method/routine. and that can apply to anything.

Exercise
Neigong
Meditation
Vitamin C

weightlifting, meditation, yoga, healthy eating habits (nothing too strict though), gardening

Family time, work time, me time

When any of those things carry through to those different times of my day, thats when i seem to be the happiest and healthiest

Green vegetables, music

I find the key for me is to look for balance, that way I dont feel my conscience nagging me for lacking in some aspect... So stuff like:
Healthy food
Martial arts
Some social interaction, being in good standing with family/friends
Hobbies that interest me and keep me motivated
Intellectual challenges
Contact with nature

I will be keeping a close eye on this thread. I feel a calling towards a healthier lifestyle. I have two little ones to teach, I want to teach them the right things! First and foremost for my health is staying clean. For me this means: no heroin, no meth, no cocaine. I need to work on eating less junk food, one thing I've noticed about being on methadone, my sweet tooth is crazy. Thanks for the thread, keep em coming.

Omg...throwing punches and kicks after Changa breakthroughs is like Goku Supersayain 3

Close connections with family and friends.

Gardening.

Hiking.

Owning animals (dogs and chickens).

These are things that bring joy and purpose to my life. I believe they are the sorts of things that people who live long lives participate in. I'm hoping they will help me to live a long life as well.

To be healthy and content one must live in harmony with nature and with oneself - finding what it is for you that creates harmony is the name of the game
At different periods of my life I've utilized different methods for finding inner peace.
Currently, if i'm in balance, these are the things i am typically doing, some consistently and others frequently:

-Intermittent fasting: It works really well for my physical/mental makeup. My eating period is from 3pm-8pm give or take..
-Healthy, live food: When i do eat, i'm eating clean.
-Morning meditation: pranayama, yoga, on the cushion..
-Exercise: 3-4 times a week. High intensity
-Sex: having a partner has taught me more about myself, life, and happiness than anyone else.
-Creating: singing, playing music, writing, working towards my goals
-Connection to nature: whether its going for a hike, camping, swimming, or just taking a walk and being present, gardening, growing mushrooms
-Recreation: Relaxation, Ganja, enjoying a craft beer, live music, playing with the dogs
-Tending to something: plants, fungus, chickens, dogs
-Entheogens: microdosing-mushroom regimen (lions mane, psilocybin, fish oil, niacin stack :thumb_up, journeying with mushrooms, huachuma, and ayahuasca throughout the year, time in nature with mushrooms, tobacco, MDMA..
-Helping others: however that may present itself
-Community: spending time with friends and family, talking with a stranger

All of these things are great, but the key is to find the things you enjoy the most and keep doing them. Once you're doing that, stay open to other possibilities that you haven't thought of - you never know what you might find that you enjoy. Listening to what it is you truly need supersedes all of these examples; many times i've found myself doing too much of one or any number of them and wondering why I'm emotional or exhausted or cloudy or depressed.

Life moves in oscillations and cycles. Finding your place within the movement and finding ways to remind yourself of your true nature can bring peace.

Much love,
-smoothmonkey

For me the answer to that question changes as my target moves around. I do try to engage in a holistic practice that seeks to maintain balance and health in several key areas of my life, including physical, emotional, spiritual, financial/professional and social.

At any given point in time, something may be out of whack in some areas while others are doing nicely. That is a consequence of a progressing life. A goal is to seek a state of homeostasis between all of them, although for me that is rarely reached, hence a constant working and re-working of different things.

Right now, I guess the things I'm working on are mostly emotional- looking deeply into anger and non-violent communication, continuing to practice a dialectical/cognitive behavioral therapy model in everyday life, doing recovery stuff, shopping for a new therapist, fixing some financial things, thinking about the next step career-wise and dealing with some seasonal health shit (I work in a petri dish of sorts, so I've been constantly sick in one way or another all season with bouts of feeling good).


But yeah, I guess maintaining consciousness about what is ailing me, building a practice that answers that and trying to have better self-awareness about those things to be able to do so is the TL, DR.

While this is not an intentional choice, I think luck (through genetics) and upbringing play very powerful roles in our day-to-day happiness. My partner struggled throughout childhood, and memories and learned emotional responses can preclude her from having a happy day regardless of any conscious choice on her part. So for some people, I believe this takes a lot more work than others.

For me, there are definitely things and choices that make me personally unhappy on a given day, so I suppose thinking about the opposite of these things below could help answer your question.

-Being poisoned: by this, I mean being exposed to toxic environmental hazards. If I have to breathe in a weird, vinyl-type plastic or a lot of exhaust, I will feel tainted, dizzy, and just generally unhappy about the exposure. The same is true for being close to pesticide or herbicide applications. Being exposed to anything like this has the capacity to put me on edge and make me feel sick for the rest of the day.

-Lack of sleep or food: if I do not get enough sleep or am very hungry, I am much more prone to angry outbursts and general feelings of malaise.

-Stress and anxiety: if I am stressed about something coming up, like an interview or a big work call or something like that, I have a hard time letting loose and feeling happy. I obsess over preparing for these kinds of situations and feel like I am restrained by having to be prepared for them.

-Pain: I struggle to be happy if any part of my body is in immense pain. I've experienced this a couple times recently, and there is nothing that will take away your happiness more quickly than excruciating pain.

-Social isolation: I am generally not very happy if left to my own devices for over two or three days. I begin to go too deeply in my head and may struggle a bit to reestablish social connections once I get lost in there. Despite my general introversion, my life has led me to become more extroverted lately, and I now feel that if I am alone for too long, I become a bit more unhappy.

-Feeling lazy: if I have not done anything impressive in my life in a period, either for myself or for others, I generally begin to grow depressed. I thrive on making meaning for myself through doing work for others, so when I am unable to do this, I feel a bit lost and lackadaisical.

Apologies for the negative orientation of this post, but as I mentioned, looking to the opposite of the above things could provide you with some tips for general happiness and well-being.

-Social isolation: I am generally not very happy if left to my own devices for over two or three days. I begin to go too deeply in my head and may struggle a bit to reestablish social connections once I get lost in there. Despite my general introversion, my life has led me to become more extroverted lately, and I now feel that if I am alone for too long, I become a bit more unhappy.

This is mine right here. An unchangeable truth for me seems to be people are exhausting. Not always in a bad way, it’s just anytime someone is around I’m on “their time”, I cater to them. Only alone can I recharge and think unaffected. So the urge to get away is strong but I’ve also worked in cycles where I’ll be alone for a year or so and I notice getting back into the public swing takes time.

Once I’m in the swing of things I notice all the anxiety was for no reason but the whole thought process is there. Public interaction seems to be not quite like a bike, but still not quite like some other perishable skill. It’s like food or anything, you probably have a specific balanced requirement for optimal performance and too much or too little will burn you.

What’s really strange is to sit back and realize everyone else is just a storm of anxiety and confusion and reasonable possibilitys scotch taped together to form some sort of explination for what’s going on etc. I have this default setting that has me believe everyone else has their shit together for whatever reason, I guess it’s another one of those “so you can function” settings.

Next time you’re on the interstate surrounded, try and remember they’re on the verge of being swallowed alive in insanity as well

For me it is much of stated in previous posts. But likely the most essential is to listen to my higher self. If there is anything important calling for change, it is communicated to me. By diseases, life situations, dreams or through entheogens. And the very important part of the strategy is not only to listen, but to accept and take actions.

This.

To add: I can count on one hand the (adult) people I've met in my life who do not demand my energy by their presence alone. It's like as soon as you make eye contact or close proximity the wheels start turning in both your minds, there's a dialogue before either of you has said the first word.

People projecting their anxieties or enforcing their own personality through conversation is exhausting as well. The 'open' people I have met tend to have done so with psychedelics or some spiritual practice but then they have inevitably gone too far and chew your ear off, project, or have gotten a bit loopy. It feels like a real bind.


My methods for staying healthy:
Lifting weights x3 1hr sessions a week.
Being outside in a green setting, away from people, for at least a 2 hour stretch.
Reading good spiritual and philosophical literature.
Massage ball/Foam roller to aid sleep - sleep can make or break my day.

As for happy.. trying to get to a point where I no longer need to rely on happiness.

- Effective sleep.
- Physical exercise.
- Well balanced diet.
- Focus on digestive health.
- Sauna and meditation.

we all need a income and if you have to do something you don't enjoy I have found that to be incredibly depressing! and we spend so much time working it drags over to time off....my father always told me "find something you love to do THEN find a way to get paid for it and youll have a happy life!"

also for me staying away from any NON psychedelic especially heroin is key for me that will bring me down to rock bottom in a couple days!