What doesn't kill us
Our ancestors crossed deserts, mountains, and oceans-- feats of endurance that now seem impossible without modern technology. Can we hack our bodies and use the environment to stimulate our inner biology? Carney explores the true connection between the mind and the body and reveals the science that allows us to push past our perceived limitations.
Stats for nerds
3recommend
11mentions
3people
2017–2023years
73% recommend27% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Well, first thing is, can you breath through your nose? Do you have that habit down? Fixing this is really important, for me at least. If a person can't breath through their nose, I suggest trying Afrin. This was such a huge lightbulb moment for me, and was my "AHA" moment. I really didn't know that the normal human condition is to nasal breathe. My mom has the same condition and I was raised by her so I didn't realize it and she didn't either to even notice it in me. It works instantly, within 10 minutes, and my world was opened up! And it still took me months to form the habit of nasal breathing, because I could never trust it enough when it worked (due to the nasal cycle). I definitely do Afrin just before bedtime too, every 12 hours or so. And I am getting surgery for the deviated septum too in February.
Second thing, do you have chronic pain? That will keep the body in a stress response. Chronic pain is actually easier to get rid of than I thought, and I tried a lot of things for 20 years. The new research at University of Colorado Boulder, using functional MRI scans in 2020 proves that much chronic pain can be eliminated in a short period with a very specific technique called Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), which is a compassion-based therapy. This is a really, really hard thing to believe, and one doesn't have to believe it fully, they just have to believe it enough to be curious and learn more. And if one is curious, I recommend listening to a 15 episode mini-series podcast called Tell Me About Your Pain by Alon Gordon (Pain Pyschologist) and Alon Ziv (Neuroscientist), then after that listen to the audio book (not ebook) by the same people called "The Way Out" (2022). Then there are 6 specific meditations by Alan Gordon on an app called Curable that I used to eliminate my chronic neck and back pain, I can dig up the link to them if you like. This same technique is what I use to react to my shallow breathing and fatigue with deeper breathing. This got me sleeping through the night.
Third, the trauma therapy (it isn't if we have trauma, it is how much), I recommend starting with the film The Wisdom of Trauma. And if that is interesting then reading In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. Myth of Normal seems like a great book too, I haven't read it yet though but it is on my list. I did start reading Gabor's AD(H)D book Scattered Minds a while back, way before this breathing breakthrough surfaced and need to finish it, but to sum up one thing I learned I have ADD-Like symptoms and this whole shallow breathing thing I have noticed is a large part of it. Once I start conscious breathing, by ADD-like stuff reduces. I've been more motivated to actually exercise and not fall asleep doing it, and I have been working on cold-exposure therapy (What Doesn't Kill Us by Mark Carney, investigative journalist who tried to debunk Wim Hoff, ended up drinking the Koolaid, and explains why). The cold-exposure increases the chemical called norepinephrine, which is one of the chemicals that Adderall increases (along with Dopamine). There is a quote from the film "My Octopus Teacher" (fantastic film) where he says "the cold really upgrades the brain" and references him diving into the ocean without a wetsuit almost every day for a year making friends with an octopus. I really like that quote. The cold does help me think when I do it, and I am still easing into it, and getting my brain back.
All in all, I feel at a really new phase of my life, and that includes this thing called "Hope". I no longer think my fatigue is caused by my diet, and in fact I know it isn't.
I'm happy to chat about this with you or anyone else. I'm also open to saying "hi" on a real-time communication (RTC) chat here https://cal.com/ElijahLynn.
- Oxygen Advantage is a great book. I'd recommend James Nestor's - 'Breath' [0] as a first read, however. I feel like the book has more real world application and I picked up a number of things outside of what I learned studying Hof breathwork. I also studied, prior to both books, with Wim Hof in Poland in 2017 on one of his week long expeditions. The in person experience of group breath work is something to experience if you've never. It's so much different than working on it solo - especially if you're new to any of these methods.
Breath work and cold exposure have been a large part of my life after reading 'What Doesn't Kill Us' by Scott Carney [1]. That was the book that drove me want to experience it first hand.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/48890486-breath [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30039048-what-doesn-t-ki...
- I loved reading 'What Doesn't Kill Us', and have been thinking about doing one of the week-long expeditions with Wim Hof. Did you do any prep before going on the trip, or was it your first experience with his breathwork?
- I still haven't tried any of the breathing techniques, but the book published on Wim Hof's method[1] is a fascinating read.
It was written by an investigative journalist that was initially skeptic of the method, and decided to debunk the myth.
[1] What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength
https://www.amazon.com/What-Doesnt-Kill-Environmental-Condit...
- * Why We Sleep, by Matthew Walker
* Masters of Doom, by David Kushner
* What Doesn't Kill Us, by Scott Carney
* Bad Blood, by John Carreyrou
* The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondō
* How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by Scott Adams
- After skimming the great recommendations in the comments one I didn't see mentioned is: "Dream Teams" [1]. Just recently finished the audio book, narrated by the author Shane Snow. Was a very engaging book overall.
One I read last year that was one of my favorites is "What Doesn't Kill Us" [2] by Scott Carney. I went and did a week long Wim Hof class after reading it and the book was a great preread that gave me perspective and context for the trip.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37703548-dream-teams
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30039048-what-doesn-t-ki...
