How To Pull Yourself Out Of A Bad Mood Tim Ferriss ~ Chris Williamson

you do to pull yourself out of a funk or how would you advise people to better deal with depression and anxiety or low mood?

I really think an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure with this. So I try to prophylactically have routines in place that seem to decrease the likelihood, including cold exposure, which for a long time was prescribed for melancholy. This is not new. But like medieval times? Like 100, 200 years ago, it was a prescription, cold baths for melancholy. aka depression so this is what what is hold is now new again but but certainly cold exposure i would say without a doubt having a consistent exercise routine and something is better than nothing like the difference the zero to one difference between no movement and some movement is black and white. So even if it is just going for a 20-minute walk twice a day, if you have a very packed day, schedule your calls around your walks. Social time, time with friends, which is where I disagree with some of the... very strong denouncements of say alcohol in the sense that like even one drink is terrible for you. That may be true from a strictly biochemical perspective. And I'm not advising you go out and get shit-faced five nights a week. But for instance, if one night a week, I pre-schedule a group dinner on a Friday and I'm gonna cook with friends and that means we drink wine while we're cooking. if that alcohol acts as a social lubricant and helps me connect with my friends, I think there's something to it. There are social effects, not just biochemical effects. I don't drink very much, but the group interactions and scheduling those in advance. On a yearly basis, I will block out This is very important for me. And again, not obsessing on the daily routine, but thinking about the weekly, which we've discussed, thinking about the annual. So I block out multiple weeks every year to take trips with family and friends. And I have two that I'm organizing right now. These are week-long trips. There will be, let's call it six to 10 people in each group. Some will be slightly smaller for wilderness adventures. And those are blocked out for the year in advance. And this is really critical for a few reasons. It's not just about the experience. You have all of the group threads and excitement and training and prep and fantasizing and you know, stupid dick meme jokes that guys swap or whatever in the WhatsApp groups that lead up to the trip. Then you have the trip and then you have all the memories and the shared experiences and the misadventures and the mishaps that you get so much juice out of these things. And those act for me as psychological safety nets. You always have something to look forward to if you have

three or four of these a year. That's in big part the podcast. I think for me, I think we're both kind of the same with this, that the external accountability of someone being there, there is a time on the calendar. Someone is expecting you to be there. They are a guest. You probably respect them. You probably care about what they think about you. You probably want to perform well for them and also put them in a great light and be a springboard for them and their message