#you guys have this idea of pioneers in search of a better life whose choices were either religious martyrdom or committing genocide

[northwest-by-a-train]

American Tumblr, circa 1820:

Like, imagine being mad at settlers moving west into Indian land. I am sorry but some of us are poor! And my grandpa was a persecuted minority (Mennonite) so we were never going to make it in New York City like you degenerate privileged coastal elites. It's going to happen anyways, I don't see how me moving into their land with guns and taking ownership of land — land that, btw, they don't even plow, and practice cannibalism on, and many other unchristian practices, but you'll never hear James Fenimore Cooper talk about that, will you ? — I don't see how that makes me a bad person. The truth is just that you hate to see white trash (of pure Frisian stock, die mad about it) prosper and spread the truth of Christ and America over the land. Plus, like, president Jackson isn't that bad compared to the dastardly popish Spaniards out there. Some of you just don't like the real American people, chosen nation of god to rule upon this virgin land, and you blame me for it, when I'm just out there getting this bread 💅

you don't understand i need to go kill brown children/aid in killing brown children to get a college degree im so poor😢 it made me feel sooooo bad though i hate war smh

[moonlogue-blog-blog]

2020.11.18 

i’m sitting here at 37 minutes past 4 am in the morning

just had a bowl of curry that i didn’t (couldn’t finish) last night

it was warming even though it was ‘cold’. the peppers did it. 

dark chocolate is supposed to be okay and good for me. with this ovarian cyst. 

and supposedly other foods with potassium. they said even bananas. 

from last i heard from a friend living here on the island, there are some locallly grown bananas. but it’s definitely not an indigenous plant or vegetable or fruit here. 

what is a banana?

we call it a fruit. 

what is a tomato? 

is it a vegetable?

how do we determine what is called what?

what is a boy?

what is a girl?

is it about genitals?

so the woman i teach english to these days (introduced kindly by my dear sister amy) is so cute. 

she is like this twinkling fairy. and then i’m curious, just as she is curious, about what various ‘sides’ she has underneath those layers of shine. she is a mother. she has two sons. and she has a husband. she has a mother. and probably a father. and she has the desire and will and drive to learn english. her sons go to an international school (american education system) here in jeju island. i live close to this area called the ‘english education city’ or ‘korean international school’ village/town/city whatever you wanna call it. i mean, it is a pretty big piece of land. i mean, it’s a lot of forests that they cut down for this. and i mean, there are just way too many foreign cars rolling around here, at least, a lot more than i’m kind of comfortable seeing or passing. especially in a town like this, in an island like this, where it’s like, if you have a bmw or a porsche, you know it came by boat from the mainland or somewhere else. i’m guilty too though, you know. i order stuff alot now. i used to limit and really monitor how much i ordered stuff online. last year when i first moved here, i was almost starving sometimes because 1. i didn’t want to use the refrigerator (in the dead middle of the summer) 2. i didn’t want to add carbon footprint by ordering things online conveniently and 3. i didn’t want to make a lot of trash. but then eventually you know what i did? i went to the gs25 15 minute walk away to get beer, chips and ice cream. and wine. and sweets. and cookies. and ramyun. all kinds of shit. 

trash. what is trash really anyway? it’s unwanted or un-useable parts of things that we use. things we don’t think we need or want. they have no use for us, so we throw it away. 

my friend saewon sent me a youtube link to a korean guy talking about the difference between good and bad people. it was literally that - he was saying the people you can trust are the ones who will stay by your side because they have some use for you. basically, they have something that they’d be able to benefit or get from you. even gain or suck out of you, by being within your circle or keeping you in their life. but if they betray you or leave you, it’s because they have decided that you are no longer of use to them. they don’t need you anymore. there is no more juice to suck on. 

i thought that was pretty intense - at least they way he put it - sounded so…transactional? calculating? impersonal? and kinda, cold. it kinda shatters the whole notion of the korean jung정. you know?

i’ve been talking about a project that i’ll be working on. or that i am working on. 

i mean, it’s hard to say when an actual project starts or finishes specifically. 

it could have begun years ago when some ideas started seeding within your mind and body and heart. it could have technically begun when you decided to sit down and make a proposal of the project and send it in as an application for funding. it could begin the day that you decide to go and do the first shoot or write the first draft or make the first copy or whatever you do. 

how could i still think of that day? 

with such memory precision, i search back and look for these clues. 

i look in to details. 

kinda obsessively. 

but also inquisitiviely

because i am curious

do you like me?

have you found interest in me?

what do you like about me?

how can you fancy me?

what can i do?

how can i flaunt?

but then, 

i see you

and i 

like 

you

 so here it is, another dilemma, not particularly between two choices or anything. 

but more of an existential question about ‘what is it to be human?’

‘what is it to be a woman?’

‘what does it mean to be balanced? both masculine and feminine?’

perhas we were the only two that applied

eitherway

it was meant to be

and even if there is no competititon

then even better

i didn’t have to beat someone else to get what i wanted

it was fair

we all got stuff to do

people were not applying to go outside of their bubble anyway

unless they were set on being free

and playing by their own rules

and that’s been the subject of a lot of conversation

i mean, why can’t i wear no bra to work with male coworkers?

why can’t i just be myself with my crazy hair shaved or spiking out in the most awkward growth stages?

well, i should ask myself that question

because no matter what, and even though the society has their unwritten rules and some actual outright laws and stuff, 

i mean, i know what’s right for me and i know what’s true to me, right?

or i should hope so. that this is the case. 

but then, we are always compromising. 

always

com

prom

i

zing

we talked about that while we were sitting on the rock over the ocean. 

the waves were so silky smooth 

and the wind wasn’t too cold even after sunset

but we did eventually get up and leave before it got too dark

she was smoking cigarettes

and blaming me for it

that i had given her the most delicious cigarettes and called it ‘cloud candy’

i was just repeating what my friend in the east coast told me, 

that she’d go and have some ‘cloud candy’ when she was actually going to have a secret cigarette at the corner of her yard. 

she was a farmer, a builder, a writer, a - many things. a mother. a wife. a pioneer. a mover and a shaker. and she was sick too. but aren’t we all a bit sick? in heart mind and body? and spirit. 

but i wonder if the spirit ever gets sick. or it just gets…stuck. or misunderstood. or angry maybe? perhaps? but it doesn’t get sick. right?

when my cousin was having her seizure like episode, 

she said a few things to me that were unreal. 

like how did she know about the things she was saying out loud to me?

it was as if she was possessed. 

it was as if she knew something that i didn’t know, 

that she saw things

and she knew things

and yes she was incredibly drunk

and she just knew things

was she and is she also part shaman?

a seer?

perhaps she was, and now she is a devout christian. 

she said that before she converted to christianity, her spirit was tormented by a visciously angry resentful female ghost/spirit. also her younger sister, my other cousin, had these nightmares or night terrors or sleep paralysis kind of experiences, right before she was trying to convert to christianity. and then once she converted she said she’s been having no problems. they are both, ‘happily’ married, and doing quite alright. i guess. 

i mean, who’se to say that marriage is right or wrong?

i mean, i don’t know. 

i like that my parents got married, even when they hardly knew eachother, because thanks to them getting married, i was born. and my brother was born before me. of course. 

and we were a family, and we are a family. for the rest of our lives, and onwards, even if we don’t want to be. it’s in the blood and there’s no denying that. 

i liked many people. it was just like an instinctual thing. 

with girls, we’d become best friends and then because of something, we’d get angry pissy or jealous and then we’d have the worst most dramatic fight. argument. break up. 

and then with boys, i’d just crush on them. i’d be like, oooh whose that boy? i like hiiiim. and then i’d spread that to my friends and indirectly let him know that i’ve got a thing for him. that i got my eye on him. but then i’d be so shy. i wouldn’t really make a move or anything. 

the first time i probably made a move on someone first, was when i was at this punk rock show in hawai’i and i asked a girl that i met there if she wanted to be a part of my love life. i mean, that’s not exactly how i started the conversation. i was dancing. and it was crowded. not my type of music but then my fellow radio station djs and friends were there. so i see this girl dancing in front of me, and she had a tattoo that was a korean letter or word or something on the back of her neck. so i was curious. and maybe a little high. so i tapped her on her shoulder and it was loud. but she turned around from the touch, and i don’t remember what i said through the noise but i must have asked her about her tattoo. and why she has it? and i think i heard through the drums and guitars that she was half korean. or something like that. we kinda tried to talk but it wasn’t working with the punk rock. but she did say something after looking into my eyes or face. and i could make out her lips or just the energy of what she said. she said ‘you’re beautiful’. and i think i embarassed her by repeating what she said. she probably thought i couldn’t hear her.

i was already smitten by crystal. they were everything. i mean, i couldn’t figure it out cos i guess i was mostly in to boys at the time. but here was this being. that just was like, unbelievable and strange and beautiful and alluring and soft and amusing and curious and incredibly attractive. i couldn’t understand this attraction. but it was real. it’s not like i ignored it, but i was perhaps waiting to see. or keeping an eye on it. or just…participating in this getting to know eachother. 

i eventually went down on her. she had jeans on. we were kissing. finally. after laying in this mattress for a while. in her friend’s living room. i was wondering if we were gonna play around. fool around. but she just lay still, there. close to me. but not making any moves. 

so i think i might have tapped her on her shoulder again. to be like, ‘hey, i thought we were gonna make out or do something’. haha. that was ridiculous. but honest. and straightforward. so we did. we proceeded. with soft kisses. probably the softest i’ve ever tasted. ever felt. on my lips. and on my tongue. on my skin. and she was supple. she was wet. she was soft. and then i couldn’t help but go down towards her belly, then her jeans. unbotton. and then zip down. and then off. i smelled her. it was fishy. i was surprised. the odor was so alive. so visceral. so strong. and then i think i just devoured her. i’m not even sure what i did. but i enjoyed it greatly and just allowed myself to go into it and enjoy it more. and i think, she did as well. 

(i’m supposed to have written 30,000 words by today if i have kept track with writing at least 1,666 words per day since november 1st. then i’d be able to finish writiing a 50,000 word novel by the end of november. how? just writing. i mean, not even with much of a plot. just about my life. and how i’ve been living.  and currently, i’m at 4,643 words. it’s day 18.)

wish me luck. 

[cristinajourdanqp]

How Should We Harness Behavioral Economics for Better Health?

As much as humans think they’re objective beings whose every decision emerges from cold logical calculation, we’re just irrational, emotional animals. That’s why stories and anecdotes are more convincing than facts, why people fear losing money twice as much as they enjoy making it, and why the guy making $100k per year feels poor if his neighbors make twice that. This kind of phenomenon is best explained by behavioral economics, a method of economic inquiry that uses psychological, emotional, cognitive, and social factors to explain why we make the often-irrational financial choices we do. And it has some interesting applications for health….

In a recent piece in the NY Times, a doctor discussed how health care professionals are beginning to leverage behavioral economics to make their patients healthier. He begins with a few examples of behavioral economics in action.

People are more likely to choose an option if it’s the default position. In one study, countries where people had to opt-out of organ donation had organ donor rates of over 90%, compared to donor rates of 4 to 27% in places where people had to opt-in.

People are more likely to make a decision when given fewer options. Too many options make decision-making harder, as anyone who’s spent two hours reading hand blender reviews on Amazon before giving up and ordering nothing can tell you.

While we wait for the experts and authorities to fine-tune their benevolent social nudges, how can we take advantage of behavioral economics for our own health?

Penalties Work Better Than Rewards

People hate losing money. Future rewards are just that: in the future. They’re abstractions. Forking over money, placing your own hard-earned cash in limbo while you succeed or fail is very real. You had money, then it went away. That’s happening in the present moment, and you feel it—rather poignantly. As behavioral economics pioneers Kahneman and Tversky said in 1979, “losses loom larger than gains.”

Stickk was created by a behavioral economist who knew the power of loss aversion. With StickK, users interested in accomplishing a goal formally make a commitment to reach that goal by a certain date and put some of their own money on the line to be forfeited if the commitment is not fulfilled. You set the goal, lay out the stakes of your commitment (how much money, if any, will you put on the line, and where will the money go if you fail?), choose a “referee” to track your progress, keep you honest and report your progress to StickK, and choose other StickK users as supporters to cheer you on. Choose a goal template or create your own from scratch. Goals can be ongoing commitments requiring constant check-ins, or one-time things where you either succeed or fail.

Another option is Pavlok, a device created by the guy who paid a woman off Craigslist to slap him across the face each time he stopped focusing on his work. You strap the Pavlok onto your wrist—it looks a lot like a FitBit—and decide on a bad habit you’d like to break or a good one you’d like to establish. Each time you fail to hold your side of the bargain, the Pavlok zaps you with a mild but uncomfortable electric shock. (This option might not be for everyone, but I’d love to hear from those who do try it.)

Don’t Shop When You’re Hungry

Shopping for anything when hungry is a bad idea. Studies show that hunger increases the amount we spend, even if we’re shopping for something totally unrelated to food. When you’re hungry, you desire more of everything.

Hungry grocery shoppers make worse choices, too, choosing unhealthier, higher-calorie junk food over healthier, lower-calorie real food.

To this, I’d also add the tangentially related “Don’t go out to eat at an expensive sushi restaurant if you’re starving.” There’s no quicker way to run up a bill.

If you must go shopping while hungry, prepare a list beforehand. That list will be your life vest of rationality in the stormy, boiling sea of gurgling stomach juices drifting you toward the snack aisle.

Sink Your Costs in Health

You may have heard of the “sunk cost fallacy”—which describes how people feel compelled to stick with something they’ve already paid for, even if it’s horrible, just to “get their money’s worth.” It usually refers to a negative, harmful behavior.

Sometimes the sunk cost mentality is helpful, though. Wasting 3 hours of your life on an awful movie just bcause you paid $12 is bad. Going to the gym three times a week for a full year because you paid $1000 for the year membership up front is good. Both are sunk costs, but one has a good result. Other examples of positive sunk costs include personal training sessions, massage sessions, expensive exercise equipment (barbells, stationary bikes, kettlebells, etc).

Price matters here. The sunk cost effect will be greater the higher your initial investment. It’s harder to ignore a $1000-a-year membership at the local powerlifting gym than it is to ignore the Planet Fitness package you got for less than $100.

Surround Yourself with People Making the Choices You Want to Make

According to a 2013 study, people tend to converge to the lowest common denominator. Office workers were all given access to treadmill desks, then followed for six months. When people got regular updates about everyone else’s treadmill usage, they used them less, regressed to the lowest common denominator. When people didn’t know how often the others were using the treadmills, usage went up.

Since social media and basic physical proximity make it nearly impossible ot avoid knowing what everyone else is doing, your best bet is to surround yourself with people doing awesome, healthy things on a regular basis. Follow Facebook and Instagram friends with healthy habits. Train at a gym where the other people’s feats inspire you. Make sure the lowest common denominator is higher than most.

Order Groceries

When you’re at the grocery store, even a healthy one like Whole Foods, they’re tugging on your emotions and base desires at every turn. I don’t fault them for it. It’s how merchandising works. Just know that’s what you’re walking into, unless you decide not to walk into the store at all.

These days, that’s actually possible. You can order groceries from a place like Thrive (my favorite) or Instacart. Instead of idly browsing through the entire store’s inventory, where you might run into something junky, you search for the exact categories you want, and then you browse. If you don’t want the gluten-free almond flour macaroons you can’t ever walk past, you simply don’t search for them.

Don’t Just Imagine the Worst Possible Scenario—Feel It

In an effort to dissuade cigarette usage, many countries have established laws requiring the use of graphic warning labels that depict potential consequences of long-term smoking, in lurid detail. Does the sight of a cancerous orifice, tracheotomy hole, or dead body make people more likely to try quitting? It appears so. Graphic warning labels correlate with both more attempts to quit and reduced rates of smoking. 

This can work for everyday health practices, too. Immerse yourself in graphic, visceral evidence of the worst thing than can happen to you if you don’t lose weight/exercise/do what you need to do.

Prediabetic? Rev up the images of diabetic foot amputations and festering sores.

Stiff and inactive? Look up knee replacements, watch arthroscopic surgery videos.

Make Healthy Food and Exercise the Default

We stick with the default option more often than not. It’s harder to opt-out than opt-in. Make it so that you have to opt-out of eating right and exercising.

Every Sunday, do meal prep for the rest of the week. Cook up a big batch of something. That way, if you want something unhealthy, you have to “opt-out” of eating the healthy food you already have prepared and ready to go. This also works on smaller scales, such as keeping hard-boiled eggs on hand or chopping veggies and prepping salad makings days in advance.

A few ideas for making exercise and movement the default position:

Start active commuting to work.

Eliminate your office chair. Force yourself to stand (or walk).

Keep a kettlebell (or barbell, or dumbbell, or weight vest, or any piece of equipment) right outside your bedroom door. Whenever you wake up, there it is waiting for you.

Behavioral economics is powerful and, in my opinion, quite accurate. Most of us “use” it every day without even realizing it. How else can you leverage behavioral economics to make it easier to eat, move, and live Primally?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.

[watsonrodriquezie]

How Should We Harness Behavioral Economics for Better Health?

As much as humans think they’re objective beings whose every decision emerges from cold logical calculation, we’re just irrational, emotional animals. That’s why stories and anecdotes are more convincing than facts, why people fear losing money twice as much as they enjoy making it, and why the guy making $100k per year feels poor if his neighbors make twice that. This kind of phenomenon is best explained by behavioral economics, a method of economic inquiry that uses psychological, emotional, cognitive, and social factors to explain why we make the often-irrational financial choices we do. And it has some interesting applications for health….

In a recent piece in the NY Times, a doctor discussed how health care professionals are beginning to leverage behavioral economics to make their patients healthier. He begins with a few examples of behavioral economics in action.

People are more likely to choose an option if it’s the default position. In one study, countries where people had to opt-out of organ donation had organ donor rates of over 90%, compared to donor rates of 4 to 27% in places where people had to opt-in.

People are more likely to make a decision when given fewer options. Too many options make decision-making harder, as anyone who’s spent two hours reading hand blender reviews on Amazon before giving up and ordering nothing can tell you.

While we wait for the experts and authorities to fine-tune their benevolent social nudges, how can we take advantage of behavioral economics for our own health?

Penalties Work Better Than Rewards

People hate losing money. Future rewards are just that: in the future. They’re abstractions. Forking over money, placing your own hard-earned cash in limbo while you succeed or fail is very real. You had money, then it went away. That’s happening in the present moment, and you feel it—rather poignantly. As behavioral economics pioneers Kahneman and Tversky said in 1979, “losses loom larger than gains.”

Stickk was created by a behavioral economist who knew the power of loss aversion. With StickK, users interested in accomplishing a goal formally make a commitment to reach that goal by a certain date and put some of their own money on the line to be forfeited if the commitment is not fulfilled. You set the goal, lay out the stakes of your commitment (how much money, if any, will you put on the line, and where will the money go if you fail?), choose a “referee” to track your progress, keep you honest and report your progress to StickK, and choose other StickK users as supporters to cheer you on. Choose a goal template or create your own from scratch. Goals can be ongoing commitments requiring constant check-ins, or one-time things where you either succeed or fail.

Another option is Pavlok, a device created by the guy who paid a woman off Craigslist to slap him across the face each time he stopped focusing on his work. You strap the Pavlok onto your wrist—it looks a lot like a FitBit—and decide on a bad habit you’d like to break or a good one you’d like to establish. Each time you fail to hold your side of the bargain, the Pavlok zaps you with a mild but uncomfortable electric shock. (This option might not be for everyone, but I’d love to hear from those who do try it.)

Don’t Shop When You’re Hungry

Shopping for anything when hungry is a bad idea. Studies show that hunger increases the amount we spend, even if we’re shopping for something totally unrelated to food. When you’re hungry, you desire more of everything.

Hungry grocery shoppers make worse choices, too, choosing unhealthier, higher-calorie junk food over healthier, lower-calorie real food.

To this, I’d also add the tangentially related “Don’t go out to eat at an expensive sushi restaurant if you’re starving.” There’s no quicker way to run up a bill.

If you must go shopping while hungry, prepare a list beforehand. That list will be your life vest of rationality in the stormy, boiling sea of gurgling stomach juices drifting you toward the snack aisle.

Sink Your Costs in Health

You may have heard of the “sunk cost fallacy”—which describes how people feel compelled to stick with something they’ve already paid for, even if it’s horrible, just to “get their money’s worth.” It usually refers to a negative, harmful behavior.

Sometimes the sunk cost mentality is helpful, though. Wasting 3 hours of your life on an awful movie just bcause you paid $12 is bad. Going to the gym three times a week for a full year because you paid $1000 for the year membership up front is good. Both are sunk costs, but one has a good result. Other examples of positive sunk costs include personal training sessions, massage sessions, expensive exercise equipment (barbells, stationary bikes, kettlebells, etc).

Price matters here. The sunk cost effect will be greater the higher your initial investment. It’s harder to ignore a $1000-a-year membership at the local powerlifting gym than it is to ignore the Planet Fitness package you got for less than $100.

Surround Yourself with People Making the Choices You Want to Make

According to a 2013 study, people tend to converge to the lowest common denominator. Office workers were all given access to treadmill desks, then followed for six months. When people got regular updates about everyone else’s treadmill usage, they used them less, regressed to the lowest common denominator. When people didn’t know how often the others were using the treadmills, usage went up.

Since social media and basic physical proximity make it nearly impossible ot avoid knowing what everyone else is doing, your best bet is to surround yourself with people doing awesome, healthy things on a regular basis. Follow Facebook and Instagram friends with healthy habits. Train at a gym where the other people’s feats inspire you. Make sure the lowest common denominator is higher than most.

Order Groceries

When you’re at the grocery store, even a healthy one like Whole Foods, they’re tugging on your emotions and base desires at every turn. I don’t fault them for it. It’s how merchandising works. Just know that’s what you’re walking into, unless you decide not to walk into the store at all.

These days, that’s actually possible. You can order groceries from a place like Thrive (my favorite) or Instacart. Instead of idly browsing through the entire store’s inventory, where you might run into something junky, you search for the exact categories you want, and then you browse. If you don’t want the gluten-free almond flour macaroons you can’t ever walk past, you simply don’t search for them.

Don’t Just Imagine the Worst Possible Scenario—Feel It

In an effort to dissuade cigarette usage, many countries have established laws requiring the use of graphic warning labels that depict potential consequences of long-term smoking, in lurid detail. Does the sight of a cancerous orifice, tracheotomy hole, or dead body make people more likely to try quitting? It appears so. Graphic warning labels correlate with both more attempts to quit and reduced rates of smoking. 

This can work for everyday health practices, too. Immerse yourself in graphic, visceral evidence of the worst thing than can happen to you if you don’t lose weight/exercise/do what you need to do.

Prediabetic? Rev up the images of diabetic foot amputations and festering sores.

Stiff and inactive? Look up knee replacements, watch arthroscopic surgery videos.

Make Healthy Food and Exercise the Default

We stick with the default option more often than not. It’s harder to opt-out than opt-in. Make it so that you have to opt-out of eating right and exercising.

Every Sunday, do meal prep for the rest of the week. Cook up a big batch of something. That way, if you want something unhealthy, you have to “opt-out” of eating the healthy food you already have prepared and ready to go. This also works on smaller scales, such as keeping hard-boiled eggs on hand or chopping veggies and prepping salad makings days in advance.

A few ideas for making exercise and movement the default position:

Start active commuting to work.

Eliminate your office chair. Force yourself to stand (or walk).

Keep a kettlebell (or barbell, or dumbbell, or weight vest, or any piece of equipment) right outside your bedroom door. Whenever you wake up, there it is waiting for you.

Behavioral economics is powerful and, in my opinion, quite accurate. Most of us “use” it every day without even realizing it. How else can you leverage behavioral economics to make it easier to eat, move, and live Primally?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.

[milenasanchezmk]

How Should We Harness Behavioral Economics for Better Health?

As much as humans think they’re objective beings whose every decision emerges from cold logical calculation, we’re just irrational, emotional animals. That’s why stories and anecdotes are more convincing than facts, why people fear losing money twice as much as they enjoy making it, and why the guy making $100k per year feels poor if his neighbors make twice that. This kind of phenomenon is best explained by behavioral economics, a method of economic inquiry that uses psychological, emotional, cognitive, and social factors to explain why we make the often-irrational financial choices we do. And it has some interesting applications for health….

In a recent piece in the NY Times, a doctor discussed how health care professionals are beginning to leverage behavioral economics to make their patients healthier. He begins with a few examples of behavioral economics in action.

People are more likely to choose an option if it’s the default position. In one study, countries where people had to opt-out of organ donation had organ donor rates of over 90%, compared to donor rates of 4 to 27% in places where people had to opt-in.

People are more likely to make a decision when given fewer options. Too many options make decision-making harder, as anyone who’s spent two hours reading hand blender reviews on Amazon before giving up and ordering nothing can tell you.

While we wait for the experts and authorities to fine-tune their benevolent social nudges, how can we take advantage of behavioral economics for our own health?

Penalties Work Better Than Rewards

People hate losing money. Future rewards are just that: in the future. They’re abstractions. Forking over money, placing your own hard-earned cash in limbo while you succeed or fail is very real. You had money, then it went away. That’s happening in the present moment, and you feel it—rather poignantly. As behavioral economics pioneers Kahneman and Tversky said in 1979, “losses loom larger than gains.”

Stickk was created by a behavioral economist who knew the power of loss aversion. With StickK, users interested in accomplishing a goal formally make a commitment to reach that goal by a certain date and put some of their own money on the line to be forfeited if the commitment is not fulfilled. You set the goal, lay out the stakes of your commitment (how much money, if any, will you put on the line, and where will the money go if you fail?), choose a “referee” to track your progress, keep you honest and report your progress to StickK, and choose other StickK users as supporters to cheer you on. Choose a goal template or create your own from scratch. Goals can be ongoing commitments requiring constant check-ins, or one-time things where you either succeed or fail.

Another option is Pavlok, a device created by the guy who paid a woman off Craigslist to slap him across the face each time he stopped focusing on his work. You strap the Pavlok onto your wrist—it looks a lot like a FitBit—and decide on a bad habit you’d like to break or a good one you’d like to establish. Each time you fail to hold your side of the bargain, the Pavlok zaps you with a mild but uncomfortable electric shock. (This option might not be for everyone, but I’d love to hear from those who do try it.)

Don’t Shop When You’re Hungry

Shopping for anything when hungry is a bad idea. Studies show that hunger increases the amount we spend, even if we’re shopping for something totally unrelated to food. When you’re hungry, you desire more of everything.

Hungry grocery shoppers make worse choices, too, choosing unhealthier, higher-calorie junk food over healthier, lower-calorie real food.

To this, I’d also add the tangentially related “Don’t go out to eat at an expensive sushi restaurant if you’re starving.” There’s no quicker way to run up a bill.

If you must go shopping while hungry, prepare a list beforehand. That list will be your life vest of rationality in the stormy, boiling sea of gurgling stomach juices drifting you toward the snack aisle.

Sink Your Costs in Health

You may have heard of the “sunk cost fallacy”—which describes how people feel compelled to stick with something they’ve already paid for, even if it’s horrible, just to “get their money’s worth.” It usually refers to a negative, harmful behavior.

Sometimes the sunk cost mentality is helpful, though. Wasting 3 hours of your life on an awful movie just bcause you paid $12 is bad. Going to the gym three times a week for a full year because you paid $1000 for the year membership up front is good. Both are sunk costs, but one has a good result. Other examples of positive sunk costs include personal training sessions, massage sessions, expensive exercise equipment (barbells, stationary bikes, kettlebells, etc).

Price matters here. The sunk cost effect will be greater the higher your initial investment. It’s harder to ignore a $1000-a-year membership at the local powerlifting gym than it is to ignore the Planet Fitness package you got for less than $100.

Surround Yourself with People Making the Choices You Want to Make

According to a 2013 study, people tend to converge to the lowest common denominator. Office workers were all given access to treadmill desks, then followed for six months. When people got regular updates about everyone else’s treadmill usage, they used them less, regressed to the lowest common denominator. When people didn’t know how often the others were using the treadmills, usage went up.

Since social media and basic physical proximity make it nearly impossible ot avoid knowing what everyone else is doing, your best bet is to surround yourself with people doing awesome, healthy things on a regular basis. Follow Facebook and Instagram friends with healthy habits. Train at a gym where the other people’s feats inspire you. Make sure the lowest common denominator is higher than most.

Order Groceries

When you’re at the grocery store, even a healthy one like Whole Foods, they’re tugging on your emotions and base desires at every turn. I don’t fault them for it. It’s how merchandising works. Just know that’s what you’re walking into, unless you decide not to walk into the store at all.

These days, that’s actually possible. You can order groceries from a place like Thrive (my favorite) or Instacart. Instead of idly browsing through the entire store’s inventory, where you might run into something junky, you search for the exact categories you want, and then you browse. If you don’t want the gluten-free almond flour macaroons you can’t ever walk past, you simply don’t search for them.

Don’t Just Imagine the Worst Possible Scenario—Feel It

In an effort to dissuade cigarette usage, many countries have established laws requiring the use of graphic warning labels that depict potential consequences of long-term smoking, in lurid detail. Does the sight of a cancerous orifice, tracheotomy hole, or dead body make people more likely to try quitting? It appears so. Graphic warning labels correlate with both more attempts to quit and reduced rates of smoking. 

This can work for everyday health practices, too. Immerse yourself in graphic, visceral evidence of the worst thing than can happen to you if you don’t lose weight/exercise/do what you need to do.

Prediabetic? Rev up the images of diabetic foot amputations and festering sores.

Stiff and inactive? Look up knee replacements, watch arthroscopic surgery videos.

Make Healthy Food and Exercise the Default

We stick with the default option more often than not. It’s harder to opt-out than opt-in. Make it so that you have to opt-out of eating right and exercising.

Every Sunday, do meal prep for the rest of the week. Cook up a big batch of something. That way, if you want something unhealthy, you have to “opt-out” of eating the healthy food you already have prepared and ready to go. This also works on smaller scales, such as keeping hard-boiled eggs on hand or chopping veggies and prepping salad makings days in advance.

A few ideas for making exercise and movement the default position:

Start active commuting to work.

Eliminate your office chair. Force yourself to stand (or walk).

Keep a kettlebell (or barbell, or dumbbell, or weight vest, or any piece of equipment) right outside your bedroom door. Whenever you wake up, there it is waiting for you.

Behavioral economics is powerful and, in my opinion, quite accurate. Most of us “use” it every day without even realizing it. How else can you leverage behavioral economics to make it easier to eat, move, and live Primally?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.

[fishermariawo]

How Should We Harness Behavioral Economics for Better Health?

As much as humans think they’re objective beings whose every decision emerges from cold logical calculation, we’re just irrational, emotional animals. That’s why stories and anecdotes are more convincing than facts, why people fear losing money twice as much as they enjoy making it, and why the guy making $100k per year feels poor if his neighbors make twice that. This kind of phenomenon is best explained by behavioral economics, a method of economic inquiry that uses psychological, emotional, cognitive, and social factors to explain why we make the often-irrational financial choices we do. And it has some interesting applications for health….

In a recent piece in the NY Times, a doctor discussed how health care professionals are beginning to leverage behavioral economics to make their patients healthier. He begins with a few examples of behavioral economics in action.

People are more likely to choose an option if it’s the default position. In one study, countries where people had to opt-out of organ donation had organ donor rates of over 90%, compared to donor rates of 4 to 27% in places where people had to opt-in.

People are more likely to make a decision when given fewer options. Too many options make decision-making harder, as anyone who’s spent two hours reading hand blender reviews on Amazon before giving up and ordering nothing can tell you.

While we wait for the experts and authorities to fine-tune their benevolent social nudges, how can we take advantage of behavioral economics for our own health?

Penalties Work Better Than Rewards

People hate losing money. Future rewards are just that: in the future. They’re abstractions. Forking over money, placing your own hard-earned cash in limbo while you succeed or fail is very real. You had money, then it went away. That’s happening in the present moment, and you feel it—rather poignantly. As behavioral economics pioneers Kahneman and Tversky said in 1979, “losses loom larger than gains.”

Stickk was created by a behavioral economist who knew the power of loss aversion. With StickK, users interested in accomplishing a goal formally make a commitment to reach that goal by a certain date and put some of their own money on the line to be forfeited if the commitment is not fulfilled. You set the goal, lay out the stakes of your commitment (how much money, if any, will you put on the line, and where will the money go if you fail?), choose a “referee” to track your progress, keep you honest and report your progress to StickK, and choose other StickK users as supporters to cheer you on. Choose a goal template or create your own from scratch. Goals can be ongoing commitments requiring constant check-ins, or one-time things where you either succeed or fail.

Another option is Pavlok, a device created by the guy who paid a woman off Craigslist to slap him across the face each time he stopped focusing on his work. You strap the Pavlok onto your wrist—it looks a lot like a FitBit—and decide on a bad habit you’d like to break or a good one you’d like to establish. Each time you fail to hold your side of the bargain, the Pavlok zaps you with a mild but uncomfortable electric shock. (This option might not be for everyone, but I’d love to hear from those who do try it.)

Don’t Shop When You’re Hungry

Shopping for anything when hungry is a bad idea. Studies show that hunger increases the amount we spend, even if we’re shopping for something totally unrelated to food. When you’re hungry, you desire more of everything.

Hungry grocery shoppers make worse choices, too, choosing unhealthier, higher-calorie junk food over healthier, lower-calorie real food.

To this, I’d also add the tangentially related “Don’t go out to eat at an expensive sushi restaurant if you’re starving.” There’s no quicker way to run up a bill.

If you must go shopping while hungry, prepare a list beforehand. That list will be your life vest of rationality in the stormy, boiling sea of gurgling stomach juices drifting you toward the snack aisle.

Sink Your Costs in Health

You may have heard of the “sunk cost fallacy”—which describes how people feel compelled to stick with something they’ve already paid for, even if it’s horrible, just to “get their money’s worth.” It usually refers to a negative, harmful behavior.

Sometimes the sunk cost mentality is helpful, though. Wasting 3 hours of your life on an awful movie just bcause you paid $12 is bad. Going to the gym three times a week for a full year because you paid $1000 for the year membership up front is good. Both are sunk costs, but one has a good result. Other examples of positive sunk costs include personal training sessions, massage sessions, expensive exercise equipment (barbells, stationary bikes, kettlebells, etc).

Price matters here. The sunk cost effect will be greater the higher your initial investment. It’s harder to ignore a $1000-a-year membership at the local powerlifting gym than it is to ignore the Planet Fitness package you got for less than $100.

Surround Yourself with People Making the Choices You Want to Make

According to a 2013 study, people tend to converge to the lowest common denominator. Office workers were all given access to treadmill desks, then followed for six months. When people got regular updates about everyone else’s treadmill usage, they used them less, regressed to the lowest common denominator. When people didn’t know how often the others were using the treadmills, usage went up.

Since social media and basic physical proximity make it nearly impossible ot avoid knowing what everyone else is doing, your best bet is to surround yourself with people doing awesome, healthy things on a regular basis. Follow Facebook and Instagram friends with healthy habits. Train at a gym where the other people’s feats inspire you. Make sure the lowest common denominator is higher than most.

Order Groceries

When you’re at the grocery store, even a healthy one like Whole Foods, they’re tugging on your emotions and base desires at every turn. I don’t fault them for it. It’s how merchandising works. Just know that’s what you’re walking into, unless you decide not to walk into the store at all.

These days, that’s actually possible. You can order groceries from a place like Thrive (my favorite) or Instacart. Instead of idly browsing through the entire store’s inventory, where you might run into something junky, you search for the exact categories you want, and then you browse. If you don’t want the gluten-free almond flour macaroons you can’t ever walk past, you simply don’t search for them.

Don’t Just Imagine the Worst Possible Scenario—Feel It

In an effort to dissuade cigarette usage, many countries have established laws requiring the use of graphic warning labels that depict potential consequences of long-term smoking, in lurid detail. Does the sight of a cancerous orifice, tracheotomy hole, or dead body make people more likely to try quitting? It appears so. Graphic warning labels correlate with both more attempts to quit and reduced rates of smoking. 

This can work for everyday health practices, too. Immerse yourself in graphic, visceral evidence of the worst thing than can happen to you if you don’t lose weight/exercise/do what you need to do.

Prediabetic? Rev up the images of diabetic foot amputations and festering sores.

Stiff and inactive? Look up knee replacements, watch arthroscopic surgery videos.

Make Healthy Food and Exercise the Default

We stick with the default option more often than not. It’s harder to opt-out than opt-in. Make it so that you have to opt-out of eating right and exercising.

Every Sunday, do meal prep for the rest of the week. Cook up a big batch of something. That way, if you want something unhealthy, you have to “opt-out” of eating the healthy food you already have prepared and ready to go. This also works on smaller scales, such as keeping hard-boiled eggs on hand or chopping veggies and prepping salad makings days in advance.

A few ideas for making exercise and movement the default position:

Start active commuting to work.

Eliminate your office chair. Force yourself to stand (or walk).

Keep a kettlebell (or barbell, or dumbbell, or weight vest, or any piece of equipment) right outside your bedroom door. Whenever you wake up, there it is waiting for you.

Behavioral economics is powerful and, in my opinion, quite accurate. Most of us “use” it every day without even realizing it. How else can you leverage behavioral economics to make it easier to eat, move, and live Primally?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.