Do you relax with social media, video games or Netflix?

No you don’t lol
You are stressing better

How better stresses work and how to relieve stress, by going to mars:

Murder mysteries, today’s top drama, and videogames only “relaxing” because they are MORE stressful!

and can be solved more easily than whatever bullshit came before

2 layers of stress relief

1. Distraction from your stressor with a better stressor

2. When the new stressor is solved it triggers relaxation. Simulating and kickstarting relaxation from both the new better stressor, and the original, real life, thing

The body can’t tell where the relax signal came from

Nor does it care

murder mysteries

1. distract from your problems with something more immediate and dangerous. A MURDER!! Pivot! Pivot! Top priority for stress!

2. Catch the bad guy
ALL Problems solved!

The relax chemicals in your body & brain spills over. You solved the murder & your problems

Jigsaw puzzles work the exact same way

Distract from the actual problem with a better problem

Focuses you on filling in the next piece
The satisfaction of each step consumes you

The end:
boom problem solved, time to relax

Porn works like this too

Orgasming, and the chemicals that come after it, make you sleepy and relaxed

The chemicals after an O are designed to stop you

Most people aren’t after the lust or the love. They want the cum down ;)

Eating donuts does the same thing too

You aren’t after the sugar. You are after the relief from needing to find more things to eat

The post dough nut clarity ;)

Intellectual puzzles work like this too

Workaholics and intensely curious people are seeking the same thing, a finished puzzle and the relief that comes with it

Elon wants to get to mars because focusing on that problem supersedes his other stresses

One step closer to mars is a much easier step towards the chemicals that trigger stress relief and relaxation than fixing the original stress

But that only works for so long

Solution:
Fix the original problem?
Fuck no lol

Very easy
Start more companies!

You are Elon btw

Tell me right now you don’t seek extra challenges and stress

Gotcha ;)

When you are in the zone, everything else fades away

Doesn’t it?

You don’t pursue your own version of post donut clarity?

We all “eat” emotionally

Ever notice how common it is for people grieving from a death to distract themselves by pouring themselves into their work?

The distraction is only half of it. The post work relax is the real prize

I’m writing this thread in a hotel room, moving to a new city, after a break up

Easier to focus on the dopamine high from this than fixing my other problems lol

I also have a box of donuts next to me. I’ve eaten 3 today.

Writing works so well as stress relief tbfh
Consumes ALL attention

And when you get the sentence just right?

ummmpph.

Better than sex

The best writers, visual artists, musicians, and tech visionaries all got that way because they have fuck tons of stress

They have a huge need to relieve stress. But w/o a solution fallback to relief from other sources

Excellence via repetitions from compulsive stress relief

But of course it’s much easier to do it vicariously then go through the trouble yourself

Consuming media is (among other things) an elaborate way to kickstart the natural stress response and relaxation cycle

Can’t stop on a Cliffhanger!
Murderer on the loose

Can’t end on a loss!

Can’t go to bed if someone is wrong on the internet!!

But fix one and it fixes everything

Relaxation chemicals don’t know or care what caused it

They just work

Solving one puzzle feels exactly like solving all the other problems too

Twitter gets a lot of hate for a design that encourages vitriol

That’s the genius of it

With 140 characters you can yell at the president!

and get the satisfaction and the 100% real relaxation response of solving the problem

Exact same chemicals as shouting in their face!

Use the president as a punching bag

10/10

CSI
uzzles
Post orgasm
Eating Donuts
Going to mars
Ratio-ing the president with a retweet

Same underlying emotion and relax chemicals

The post orgasm relaxation button:

Send tweet

Just make sure you get your relax chemicals from the right place

* right place might honestly mean going to mars and suffering for your art

Follow up:

Seeing a lot of replies saying it’s better to exercise or meditate…

Y’all…

Those are just new distractions & puzzles to solve

You’re falling into the same trap

Exercise works well because it clears the stress chemicals and makes room for the relax chemicals

Also easier to use the body to trigger the relax response rather than a mental trigger like a murder mystery

Meditation works well since it replaces external relax signals with internal feedback. Can work very well, and much faster

But you see the same problem of compulsive use, where people meditate for hours a day until they can’t make it work anymore and have a mental break

Also, if you are meditating to relax you are missing 90% of the benefits!

I do highly recommend it, but most people do it wrong. It should be an educational and skill building exercise,

the same way exercising can be relaxing and also develop new physical capabilities

But these 2 puzzles are no better than going to mars or eating a donut

In fact they are probably way worse for the world. I’m not dunking on Elon. Or saying he is broken or troubled. We all have our vices

He’s just hungrier then most of us

Finally, there is no “fix” to this

You can’t avoid it unless you:
1. Solve the original stress, often impossible
2. Never get stressed again

That’s not how humans work…

You can’t stop becoming hungry and the need to satisfy it

Suffering is the true nature of existence https://twitter.com/nickadobos/status/1505336843193118723

One more note:

There’s a reason why you choose these behaviors over skipping to rest and relaxation, besides simple distraction

Stress doesn’t go away on its own, or via rest. You need action to resolve it first

Media helps with that in a way that purely relaxing doesn’t https://twitter.com/nickadobos/status/1507150592866598912

While you can’t get rid of this cycle

There is a way to get much better at resolving the stress

Unfortunately stress relief via media falls into a big trap https://twitter.com/nickadobos/status/1507169317745426472