Sober September Challenge – Porto Part 5
My life lately is like a working heart rate monitor. Today, I received some excellent news and some terrible news.
I feel like Sasha Baron Cohen just informed me that I am HIV Aladeen (which means positive and negative).
After stressing out a bit too much yesterday, I feel like I ran out of f*cks, so I am more ok with being more not ok than usual.
Also, it helps a lot that I am working in front of a pool with a stunning mountain view. I love my office today. In the background, I see my friend is dancing without a worry in the world in his way too short to be 100% hetero Bermuda shorts.
Travelling has taught me, however, that a true vagabond needs very little. So, in theory, if you decide for minimalism, you also have less to lose in a sense. Less to fear.
Liberation through stoicism is real, what you still can lose; however, is your mind and your health.
Lately, my nutritional philosophy reminds me more and more of the movie Super-Size Me. So, I decided to make some changes to my lifestyle, starting as of now.
Less Charles Bukowski more Dave Asprey.
So, while contemplating the best ideas to create a plan that allows me to survive the rest of my 20s, I had to think of a day that I had on this journey.
Cascata Tahiti
Earlier this week my crew and I decided to check out some national parks in the Braga district, and we ended up at Cascada de Tahiti, a beautiful waterfall in the mountains of Portugal.
We casually ignored the warnings on Trip Advisor that the rock formations are super slippery, and that a tourist is still in a coma after hitting his head there.
And, it did not take long till some of us fell on our behinds. So extra caution was needed.
We climbed along the waterfall and the small river that winds itself like a snake through the giant rock formations. A thick forest of pine trees covered the endless mountains.
While jumping inelegantly from rock to rock, I feel free and liberated. Liberated because while climbing, you need to focus, so you do not fall off the rock and dash your head in.
There is something meditative about focusing on a single task. You are focused on surviving and worrying about your problems on the other side of the world is not the highest priority for your brain. So, you are 100% in the now.
It was a bitter needed break for my brain from all the sh*t that I have going on in my life right now.
The combination of sports and nature is really the strongest antidepressant there is.
After jumping off a cliff into a fresh sweet water lake, I felt like all my problems got washed away with it.
Since I am a giant goofball, and I am terribly slow at climbing, so I lost my friends for a while. So, I had some time to think.
The Duality Of Things
I wondered if modern hedonism is a form of self-hate. On the one side, I am a health and biohacking fanatic, and I love the idea of getting better a little bit every day.
But I also like beer and Kinder Pingui.
I think we all have opposite motivating forces and competing behaviours.
We all like the idea of having a six-pack. But we also like chocolate cake.
Since I have the habit of going all the way into the rabbit hole and living on the edge, moderation for me is really hard. Or at least this is what I was telling myself.
So I was evaluating taking better care of myself and laying off the booze for a while. This is why I decided to start a new experiment: Sober September, and I invite all of you to participate.
It is effortless, so only one rule, no booze of any kind in the entirety of September.
On the way back from the Cascada de Tahiti, I talked to my friend about the importance of deconstructing problems. So, I thought about the typical demeanours of my latest struggles.
I felt that booze is a great food for my monkey mind and that it was playing a role in triggering mild crises from time to time. And, with a mild crisis, I mean me casually contemplating doing a sexy backflip off a very high bridge.
So, in the spirit of bad science, let us see what happens if we take out a variable.
Do you not feel like joining the Sober September Challenge? Here are some reasons to try it.
5 Reasons For Sober September
Money
The first reason for a Sober September is that you will safe a ton of money. We all know that unpleasant feeling when looking at the receipts in your wallet on a Sunday morning, and realising that you in your drunken rage, you broke your iPhone screen again.
As a digital nomad, one of the hardest challenges is to deal with the fact that in theory, it is Friday for the rest of your life. So, you have to be mature enough to handle your freedom—something I really suck at.
Your wallet, however, will be grateful. So instead of a night out in a club, invest the money in something that is equally or even more fun. The idea is for you not to feel like you are sacrificing in Sober September, but that you are actually gaining quality in your life.
Self-Efficacy Boost
No one believes you can do it. Not even yourself. And you and your friends have very good evidence to back it up.
We all have been that guy who told everyone that they are going to stop drinking forever on a Sunday morning, only to break our sworn vows the next weekend. This is why I decided to post this today. Maybe some of you fckfaces feel the weekend in your bones.
Sober September will not only prove your friends wrong, but you will also actually boost your self-efficacy, which means the belief in your own abilities.
We all can change in an instant, and there are very few adjustments that are as strong as to stop poisoning yourself. Instead of focusing on finding the next nutritional philosophy, try for a while to just stop with the obvious stuff that makes you weak.
So, sit down for a few seconds and create a strategy that will be successful. Do not rely on your willpower! Make preparations while you are motivated. Write down the reasons for yourself, why your body deserves a break from drinking, and what you will actually gain by stopping for a while.
A fundamental principle of behaviour psychology is that if there is competing behaviour, the more natural behaviour wins. So, make drinking in September hard for yourself.
No booze in your house. If you do not feel strong enough to go to a bar, do not go.
Create a system of accountability. Make a small video on social media that you upload or give your friend 100 bucks that they can keep if you slip.
Happiness
If there was a recipe for depression, alcohol, and financial problems, it would be on top of the list. In my pursuit of deconstructing unhappiness and learning more about mood disorders, I interviewed hundreds of case studies. A significant amount of them had some form of alcohol problem or even addictive tendencies.
Happiness is as much physical as it is psychological. Stopping consuming poison regularly will boost not only your health but also your mood.
After Sober September you can still decide if it is worthwhile for you to miss out on some craziness in order to invest in your health.
You, Will, Look Better
Pete Dority’s heroin look is out, as I realized on this journey that the combination of port wine and Natas really made me gain some weight, or to be more honest, I got a little fat here.
So, after a solid dose of self-shaming, I thought why not use Sober September to swap bad habits with some nice ones, and actually get back in shape.
My basketball season is going to start in two weeks, and today I realized that my zipper required a little extra pull to get my trousers closed. Sober September will change you pretty quick, and you will be surprised by how much people will notice.
You, Will, Have More Willpower
No drinking in September will not only boost your looks, and your financial situation, but you will have more willpower actually. You will prove to yourself that you are in charge, that you can stop any time, with anything, and since you are more energetic, you have more willpower to say no to other things. So, the next time your friend asks you if you want to come to an all you can eat Chinese restaurant, you will be more likely to say no.
So why not use Sober September to invest an entire month into yourself.
So as always thank you guys for reading, and I wish you a happy Sober September!
