Episode 5: Help! How Do I Navigate All These Hacks?

Cold plunges, nootropics, fasting, brain-training apps... the internet is overflowing with "brain hacks," so why doesn't any of it seem to work? When listener Isabel from Grand Rapids calls in after trying it all, Jena, Dr. Bethany Ranes, and Dr. Norah Kennedy dig into what separates a genuinely useful strategy from a shiny distraction.

The team unpacks why so many popular hacks fall apart: they oversimplify the science or get tweaked past the point of usefulness. You'll hear why cognition isn't "brain-bound" but shaped by an entire ecosystem (the Triple-S of Self, Setting, and Social), why "a month" beats "a week" as a yardstick, and the one word that tells you whether a hack is worth your time: research. The takeaway? Take something with solid evidence and a simple implementation, then get playful with how you fit it into your life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Leave it to Dr. Kennedy to always class this place up with like a Socrates drop. And I'm gonna be over here talking about TikTok like a moron, I tell you, every time. Welcome to Firing and Wiring, a show dedicated to the neuroscience of how you think and how to optimize your mind.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Hello, welcome back to Firing Wiring, brought to you by Intercept Labs, where we bring cognitive neuroscience straight to your ears. I'm your host, Jen Amani, and I am joined by my constituents, uh Dr. Bethany Rains, cognitive neuroscientist. How's it going, B? I'm doing very well. We're also joined by our clinical psychologist, Dr. Nora Kennedy. Nora, how's your day going? Happy home day, Jenna. That's all I can say. So let's uh jump right in. Let's go to the phone lines. We had a caller, Isabel from Grand Rapids, Michigan, who called in with this question.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

I was wondering if you can explain how brain hacks actually work because I've legit tried everything on the internet. Cold plunges, nootropics, the calm app. You name it. And uh, I'm still struggling. What am I doing wrong?

SPEAKER_02 1:17

What is she doing wrong? What is she doing wrong? We should pick calm instead of headspace. I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

What's the temperature of her cold plunge? You know, it might not be cool. It might be a cool plunge that might be the issue there.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

I think that in the last couple years, like the idea of hacks and in particular, like health-related hacks and brain hacks for your thinking, they've gotten really popular. This idea of like just do this X thing and you'll max out results, right? I don't know, Nora, what do you what do you think about all the brain hack stuff?

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Yeah, I mean, I get the appeal, right? Because it's obviously if this stuff could help solve our problems, boom, let's do it, let's be done. Um, we are we are all human. So our brains and our bodies all respond pretty similarly to different stimuli and um the things that are going on for us, right? So so there is this level of generality that can happen with it. So on the one hand, there's there's that level of like, okay, we really can step back and say, for most people, this works, and here's the mechanism of why. Although we can say, well, we know this strategy can and should work based on the science and the biology and the neurobiology, and for all these reasons about how human brains and bodies work, still got to figure out kind of the right way for it to work for the individual and figure out like what does that way look like, right? Is it exactly how it's being described in that online article? Or if we don't have that background scientific knowledge to know the underlying mechanism behind what they're describing in those articles, we might not know how we can tweak it to our advantage. And so I think often what people do with hacks as well is they'll they'll tweak it to what works for them and their lifestyle. Unfortunately, though, sometimes that degrades the underlying mechanism that's actually making that hack effective for other people. And so we don't even know that we're using, we've kind of changed it too much for it to be useful.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

Yeah, I I agree entirely. And you don't want to discount what works for you or what appeals to you or what vibes with you. You know, I come from a background mostly in RD type science. And when you're working in that level, what we call like applied research or applied science, you know, somebody's gone into the lab and they've really just like drilled down and figured out the mechanisms of something. They tested it identically or as close to identically as they could. It was in a sterile environment. They were very conscientious about who they picked and they randomized people, right? And and I think that gets to Nora's point. Like that's what works, and those are the the ingredients that have to be there. You know, you you can't bake a cake without baking powder, it will be a brick. You know, you have to have certain things there. But then on the other side, most certainly it can be perfect in a sterile environment, but if it if it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. And I agree, I think a lot of hacks they focus a little bit more on um like you know how cool they are, or like, you know, there's there's something to them that's not quite that mechanism. Um, a lot of times there's like a cool app, or there's, you know, I think the color she mentioned, she mentioned calm, right? Um, or there's a cool, like kind of like a doodad that you can buy. I see tons of ads on Instagram, right, for things like this. I'm sure the algorithm has me pegged. So it's like, oh yeah. Um I think she like mentioned like neotropics, like I see so much of this. And what happens with these is like they sound super cool, they sound super like convincing, oh, it's so easy, or it really like it either fits in your lifestyle or really signals a lifestyle that you really want to have. But then, you know, one year, two years, three years later, what are we hearing like on the news is like, oh, it was found that this is not effective. God forbid, maybe it's a little bit harmful. There was a really big one. I think probably the biggest, most well-known instance of this happening was the brain games to offset dementia and Alzheimer's. Um, you know, companies who were saying, Oh, if you just play these games, right? What we saw in the population was that people who tended to play a lot of word games or number games tended not to have as high of rates of dementia. And you get into this like quick hack. Oh, well, they just play crosswords all the time and you won't have dementia. That's not really there's so many other things going on there. It's just it, you know, so it's it's taking things, and I think the intentions are always good, but it's turning it into bad science. And hacks, I think, are just um a really big and really concrete example of oversimplifying things.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Yeah, they like you're saying, they become a bit too top down of like this, this'll work for everyone. And it it misses the bottom up of like, well, how do we know what we even need or what we're deficiting? Like, where are the gaps that we're trying to fill? So it may be like cognition or or some kind of broader category, but say anyone with a cognitive science background, I'm sure that's everyone listening to this podcast, right? But like anyone with a anyone who took intros, even intro psych would know there's different types of memory, there's different types of processes in which our brain works, right? There's different types of cognition. And so just knowing that be for your example about playing those games to offset dementia, right? Just knowing that, like, well, what what types of cognitive deficits are those games even supposed to be addressing? And how far can we generalize those? If we're not looking at those underlying mechanisms, you're just looking at correlations essentially, right? There's too many extraneous factors in the middle that do they mediate, do they moderate, or do they just, you know, make everything all muddy? You can't tell, right? If you're not tasting that apart.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Yeah, I was going to piggyback on that and say that it sounds like it could be correlation correlation versus causation. Also giving trendy vibes, maybe some Theranos vibes, even in some way. But you're saying that so hacks can work or they should work if they're perhaps implemented under certain conditions, certain environments, and done exactly as they're prescribed and not adapted too much to fit a lifestyle. Um, but you also mentioned a one-off use of a hack versus um maybe something that you are building into your everyday routine or using more often. I guess how would you determine how long you should give a hack a try for before you can make the call that it doesn't work or does work?

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Yeah, so you kind of touched on a couple of things there, and these are actually really core aspects to what we've put together at InterSF Labs to avoid some of the downfalls of what we see as like sort of those those trendy hacks. Um, and a lot of that was a big part of what encouraged me to found uh a company that was able to deliver on these things in a way that did work. And so there's two components to what you just said, Jenna, that I think to me are important. One being that it's not this isolated thing. Cognition, like I said, it's an ecosystem. It's it's a lifestyle. The people who were playing those games and saw cognitive benefits, it wasn't just the games. They had a lifestyle where those games fit into those things, but there was all kinds of stuff going on. And cognitive science has done a lot of really cool stuff in the last couple decades where we started to see that cognition is not what we call brain-bound. It's not just about your brain. Yes, that's where it kind of gets organized and where it centralizes, but you're thinking with all kinds of things around you. So your cognition, your thinking, your mental performance, it's affected by a lot of different things. And no one hack is going to be able to touch all of that. Um, at Interess F labs, with our cognitive ecosystem training, we call the three big domains that affect your thinking uh the triple S, right? Uh self-setting, social. Your thinking is the product of your body. It's the product of the tools around you, it's a product of where you are, both in space and time, and it's a product of the people that are around you. So you're not gonna find a hack that just magically transforms all those things that they're working against you. And then the idea of a one-off, the time that it takes, it's it's not something where you can just, I'm just gonna take this nootropic for a week, and then my brain is just gonna go off the charts, right? All of my mental performance is just gonna be of 10x. Um, no, the closest thing we have to anything that does that, it mostly just feels like that would probably just be caffeine. Um, maybe cocaine, but that's, you know, we're talking about subjective now and not accuracy. It's a hell of a drug. It's a hell of a drug. Um, you know, a lot of those things they'll change how you feel for a short period of time, but they're not making a big impact. They're what you really need to think about are things that you're fitting into when you think about these hacks or the changes you want to make, you need to think of them as ecosystem and lifestyle changes. And no one wants to really hear that. I get it. Nobody wants to hear, like, oh, your whole life has to change. And that's not entirely true either. But you need to find ways to sort of take these things and braid them into your life in ways that make sense. So a one-off or doing something like really intensely for a week, that's not the answer, right? Um, habit science generally says that you want to give yourself around a month to figure something out. Like that's a good amount of time. It's now sometimes it takes less, sometimes it takes more. Like Nora said, like, you know, everybody's a little different. But the aggregate, that kind of average, when you look at lots and lots of people, about a month is about how long it takes for like novelty to wear off, for you to sort of experience all the different, you know, flavors of your life, um, and all of that kind of stuff. So, you know, in a month, you have good days, bad days, busy days, slow days, you know, whatever it may be. Um, and so in doing that and kind of setting yourself up for it, you should really be aiming for at least that amount of time, but realistically, you want to carry it on. You want this to be something that becomes a habit for you, a regular part of your life.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Yeah, Jenna, when you asked that question, a one-word answer popped to my mind of, well, the research, duh, like that's what tells you how long you need to do the thing. But this is this is what we can rely on the research for, right? There are hundreds of thousands of uh respectable nerds out there who are answering these questions for us that we can use their information to figure it out. And some things can be, well, I guess it kind of depends what we're looking to get out of it, right? If we if we're looking for a hack that's just helping us cope with distress tolerance when things just get too too much and too intense and we need something quick, sure, that definitely exists. B is talking more about things that will help help us improve and optimize ourselves over the long term, right? To be able to like continue to perform to our like our highest capabilities and those sorts of things are gonna be more of the habits. But the you know, task by task, yes, some of it's gonna be individualized, but a lot of it, you know, the research can kind of suggest, you know, how long does it take not only for people to master a habit for but like for our for our brain to make that new neural pathway, for our for our bodies to get comfortable with diaphragmatic breathing, which feels pretty weird to most people the first time we try it, right? So things like that where we can kind of use those metrics to measure to say, hey, we think roughly it'll take this long. These are the key things to think about and focus on, and this is how we'll be able to like tell is this is this working or not? Is it are we actually doing it right? Is it working, right? We think we're doing diaphragmatic breathing, but we're breathing up here in our chest. Guess what? It's not gonna work. So, of course, you'd come back and say it didn't work. Right, so it's kind of like first, are we even doing it the way science says we should, in order to have those mechanisms working behind the scenes for us, and then can figure out or can can look to the research of like how long does it usually take for us to adjust and adapt? How long does it take for us to build habits? And then how long as an individual does it take to feel like, yeah, I've mastered this, I feel confident, I can keep using this moving forward. I see now how it works and how it helps me. Cool. Another tool in a toolbox, let's keep going.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah, tool in the toolbox. I mean, that's exactly. I think when a lot of people think about habits and they think about building this stuff in and doing it right, they think about this like very like regimented, very sort of, I mean, frankly, kind of a natural approach of like, you know, choking something down and like forcing yourself to do something in an unnatural way. And I don't think in any way is that ever like the optimal case. Um, and tool in the toolbox, like, and what Nora said about like, oh, maybe you do this when this happens to you. That's that's the kind of thing I think really moves the needle is when you have these situational factors. Um, and to the to the correct point, I I think of it as like learning how to play a new sport. Um, you know, asking how long does it take for this hack to work or this this intervention to work is a lot like asking, well, how long until throwing a baseball becomes muscle memory, right? Like, how long until throwing a baseball feels natural? It's it's hard to give a strong answer. If you throw a baseball once and then you don't pick it up again for three months and you try and throw it again, you're obviously gonna be a little wonky for a while. And if you keep doing that, it's gonna take you a really long time to achieve some sense of organic normal, right? It doesn't take, it's instantaneous for you to create a new sensory pathway, right? As soon as you do a thing, your brain makes a memory of it. Whether that memory sticks around, whether you keep re-firing that sequence of neural pathways over and over again until it just becomes second nature and doesn't really require a lot of oversight anymore. Um, you know, all of that just it depends on frequency, consistency. And then to Nora's other point that I think is really important is are you firing correctly? Like, you know, you can throw a baseball every day, but if you're throwing it wrong, you know, you can you're not gonna get to where you need to get. So you need to make sure that what you are practicing consistently and regularly is also correct. And that's where it can get a little tricky because not everyone has access to like friendly neighborhood cognitive scientists like our delightful listeners who can listen in here. And you know, we do our best to help give people the feedback they need, but sometimes you also just need uh a little bit of hands-on. And I think that that can that can always be a little bit tough. Um, but you know, once you get there, again, like making that that new pathway in your brain, that's that's instantaneous. And now it's just kind of like, how frequently can you repeat it? I've always found that situational tools and the way that that Nora put it there is one of the most effective ways to do this. Because one, you get a sense of did it help me right away. If you're applying it to help you with like kind of an acute situation, diaphragmatic breathing is a great way to like kind of bring yourself down, get that like you know, the the nerves, the fight or flight kind of under control and help kind of what it does is it it helps activate that parasympathetic nervous system, the rest and digest. Um, if it works, it you know it works because it it happens, right? So you did it, I know I did it right because I feel better. My whole body is relaxed, I'm okay. And so, you know, that's a really nice little hold, right? Like that that went full cycle of like, I have a trigger, I tried a thing, I did the thing, I got immediate feedback. Not everything is perfect like that, but the more you can find quote unquote hacks or you know strategies that give you that little feedback loop right away or in a quick succession, I think the more effectively you can start to incorporate it into your life. You may not practice it every day, but you're practicing it in these specific situations. Um, another example, I think diaphragmatic breathing is really great. One for me, I struggle with like focus. I always have since I was a kid, but sometimes I get into like really intense flow states. Anybody who has any kind of attentional deficit, anything, will be like, hmm, yes, yes, I understand what you're talking about. Um and so I realized that um, you know, when I was struggling to focus, I would make sure I had a pen and paper and I would start to like draw ideas and thoughts instead of writing things. Even if I was in the middle of writing a paper, right? Anyone out there who's ever had a job where you have to write a manuscript or a report or anything like that, you know that you know the struggle. So I would force myself to stop typing and I would start drawing on a piece of paper. And at the time I thought it was like a bad habit, right? It was just like, ugh, I can't focus, I'm just gonna do this. But I didn't want to completely lose touch with the task. And as I did that, I realized this is actually a really great way for me to shift my thinking and stay on point in a way that doesn't feel like quite so much of a drag. So I did this as a strategy almost accidentally, like as a student. And now like it kind of grew into this lifestyle, this habit, and now I I tend to do it right away. Like when I'm thinking about a big idea, I love to like draw on a chalkboard or a whiteboard or a piece of paper or a notebook. And it's become a whole part of my process and my my flow and my lifestyle. So I've kind of built my working style around that and other things too, of course. But um, sometimes when you have these like little things that are pressure valve releases of like, oh, I can do that right now, and it really kind of just helps right now. Um, as long as you're not doing something that's avoiding a task, right? Like, oh, this is so boring. I don't want to do this manuscript, I'm gonna go watch TV instead. Or I'm gonna like doom scroll on Instagram instead. Like, that's not great. Those are avoidance strategies, they're pulling you away from the task. But if you could do something where you like keep your like finger on the task, but then you go over here and you kind of do something else. Well, that gets into stuff we talked about in like previous, you know, episodes about creativity, where you're kind of like bringing other parts of your brain into it and you're doing this. So, you know, that was something where I didn't set out to do it as a cognitive hack. I didn't set out to do it as something that a coach told me to do or a therapist told me to do. It was something that I honestly indulged in, thinking it was probably a little naughty, even though it wasn't. And again, because I consistently did it because I liked it, it became this like really fantastic tool for me that really did increase my focus and attention over my lifetime.

SPEAKER_00 21:09

I think that is, you know, one of the tricky things about the word hack is it's almost like a safe word. When you're talking about these things, you're not calling them hacks, you're calling them strategies, habits, work styles, you know, something that I apply to a specific situation, not just this like hack. You know, I think of like hacks that are it's almost it's almost not giving ourselves enough credit to say I'm using a hack, where it's like, no, you're actually really making change, and that's hard to do, you know. Um, and everything nowadays is referred to as a hack. So socially or commercially, that's kind of how it's being marketed, you know, to folks. Um but I think like applying it to tasks is better than applying it to. Like a human body, a hack, like a packing hack. Fit more in your suitcase by packing this way. That's like useful, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

But I think you know, hack comes from this idea of skipping something to get to the result, right? It's like cheat code. I always kind of feel like it's like a cheat code. And you sometimes you can find strategies that do really feel like a hack or a cheat code, and it and they feel good, they're inherently dopaminergic. And in those cases, they can actually help you with learning. And I think that's awesome. I think the problem kind of goes back to the just the vast variety of what is considered a brain hack. And some of them are really great, and some of them are not so great. And so I think the problem with the word hack is that it's just overused. It has no real meaning, especially in this context. But even still, you know, Jenna's like, a packing hack. I'm like, what the hell is a packing hack? And then you like, oh, okay, I can see how like, but in my mind, I'm like, that's a that's like a packing hot tip or something, you know, and it's like, okay, yeah, I guess a hack and a hot tip. Like they can be the same. Um, and so yeah, I think I think part of the problem too with with brain hacks is it's too, it's too widely used. And so you've got everything from, hey, that's decent advice. Like sometimes I'll hear of like a brain hack on Instagram or on TikTok, and I'm like, that's not terrible. Um, sometimes I'm like, oh my God, please don't, please don't really do that, people. Like, please, for the love of God, I hope nobody's actually doing that. So I think that's at least part of the problem. But the idea that something could be sort of simple and enjoyable and and get you to what you want, or creative, and like, oh, I never thought of doing it that way before. Um, those are certainly still on the table for strategies. So I don't think that in that way, you know, hacks are necessarily bad. But yeah, I I do tend to use strategy or or, you know, sometimes intervention, although I know in the in, you know, in Nora's world, intervention is probably a little bit more of a clinical term. Like, so I don't I don't use that one as often. But yeah, um, something that just kind of has an intentionality behind it, where it's like, I feel like a hack feels like it's not as intentional. It's like I saw this thing, I'm gonna just do it now. Wait, can you disclose which hacks you probably shouldn't try on yourself? My God, I knew that you were gonna ask me that, and I'm like, God, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to like come up with any on like I I so some of the things I think that have made me cringe the most or or give me the most pause. Fasting was like a weird thing for a while where it was like, oh, I fast, and it was like I heard at least a dozen different fasting schedules, and it's like, oh, it really helps keep me sharp. It's like, okay, um, maybe, and and again, it's like the idea of it being a one-off is the problem. Because, you know, for some people, fasting can be really helpful, and and certain fasts can be great. Like, if like I'm thinking like kind of like smaller, like you don't want to eat right before something, and and you it's what you eat and how you eat, right? Like, you eat too much, if you eat a lot of carbs, you're gonna get logey, and it's gonna keep you know, you're gonna be tired. And um, but like some people were coming to me with stuff like I remember when I was doing RD, it was like, you should put out like a fasting product for mental health and like cognitive awareness, because it just it helps. And I'm like, you know, generally not eating, um not one of the better ways to get the mind sharp. Your brain is like a crazy calorie hog. And when you pull that, it's like uh now being intentional about what you eat and like when you eat it and how you eat it, like that's maybe a different conversation, but again, not a hack, right? That's like let's sit down and talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

If you want to take a diet, like for sure, diet affects your cognition, but the idea that like a 12-hour fast or more or more are some people are saying jump into a 24, 48, 72 hour fast, especially if you've never fasted before, that's not a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 26:19

Yeah, and I think most of us like take a step back. Think of the last time that like you were working really hard and you forgot to eat until the afternoon. How did you feel? Like, how was your mental energy? Probably not your best, right? Um, so there's certainly things like the I think that those were some of the ones that came out. The neurotropics always kind of make me giggle. Um, no offense to anybody who's really into this stuff, but like a lot of times you'll there'll be research. This kind of again gets back to one of Nora's points, where if you're doing something in the lab where it's like an injection um or or an endogenous, the endogenous is like organic, happens in your body. Your body is generating the chemical. So whenever you have like an endogenous dopamine release, like that's something that naturally happens, it's and it's a cascade of things that usually happen. So these will happen in the lab where it's like, oh, okay, like there's this endogenous release of adrenaline or um, you know, or or serotonin. And so it's like, well, then just take these vitamin versions of it, these pill versions of this thing. One, the dosing is like always who knows. Most nootropics are not subject to FDA, right? So you have no idea how much of anything is in there, how much you need. Taking something orally versus having it an injection or creating it endogenously are apples and oranges. So if you'd be really careful with some of these, like, you know, vitamins or nootropics or or supplements or whatever they may be. That's also one where I think you can you can verge on bad for you, if not totally worthless. That doesn't mean all vitamins are worthless. That doesn't mean there's nothing you can take, but it's usually not terribly sexy, you know. You know, caffeine helps you feel a little bit sharper when you take it. Fish oil is great for a lot of just kind of your general like fatty tissues, of which your brain has a lot of. Um nobody's nobody's too excited about those things. So everybody wants the next big thing, and it's usually the you know, the next big thing is usually more sparkle than substance. It makes me think of detoxes too, which is like that's why you have a liver. When you honestly, when you said like what's the thing that makes you cringe, the most recent one that I saw was somebody the old master cleanse, you guys. God, that thing does not go away. Um now, I think a lot of the detoxes I see are usually more like on the physical side of like bloating or weight loss or whatever. But I do see the master cleanse pop up every once in a while for cognitive, like cognitive sharpness or mental energy. And I'm always like, I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree that that's gonna help maximize your cognitive energy. And again, it's like how long? Oh, what is the master cleanse? It's like lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and maple syrup or something like that, I think is what it is. And it's been around since what forever. Like, I that thing just never dies. If that were the secret to like eternal cognitive power, we would know by now. There would be there would be a lot more pushing that forward. So also be mindful of that. Like, if you see a hack and you're like, how long has this been around? You know, like generally, if there's promise to something, Nora said it earlier. There's one word that you can go to to like see if it's worth, if it's gonna work. Research. If if there's a promise behind something, scientists are itching for an opportunity to test things. Like, we are just chomping at the bit to try something out, either in the lab or in like people like me who who want to test it in real world environments. If if the scientists are out there and they're like, there's really nothing to this, this ain't this ain't it, then it probably ain't it, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_03 30:31

I appreciate that you gave examples because as you were talking the examples I could think of, I'm like, these will be quite unpopular with some groups. And it goes back to like, well, you know, if you actually look at the research, like this stuff isn't supported, even though we might think and feel like it does. Um, which I think then also gets into why we're susceptible is the wrong word, but why we like hacks, right? It's like there's multiple levels. There's the placebo effect going on, of like it's nice to put our faith in something we are thinking is gonna help with the problem. So it's like we're gonna have some confirmation bias and what we see, how we feel it actually works or doesn't work. And our like our brain likes to take shortcuts. Everyone's heard from you know, way back biology class that our body likes to conserve energy. And so I feel like that makes hacks like naturally attractive to us, right? It's kind of like the idea of like a shortcut, a quick answer, a quick way to zip to the zip to it. It's like very much in line with how we're wired. And so it's like it all sounds great. It's only a problem when it's a problem and it doesn't work, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:43

I I think that the the place where there's a lot of room, if you do want to experiment with hacks, is to get back to that, like find something that works. And if you really want it to be solid, I mean, pick something that has a lot of evidence, something that is otherwise like kind of boring. Um, and and you are kind of like, ah, right? Um, journaling is a really common one. You know, we know that journaling is really helpful for you to like practice all sorts of things like self-reflection or you know, catching patterns, um, seeing, you know, it's what we call metacognition and that metacognitive practice. And journaling is one of the best regular practices you can do. Journaling also, for a lot of people, it just isn't it, it's not fun. It's not sexy, it's not cool, I don't have time, I don't want to sit here to write. And so this is the opportunity. Like, you know what journaling is, and you're you're pretty sure you can do it correctly, right? You probably don't need an expert. Um, this is where you can find your hacks. Hack how you can fit it into your life creatively in a way that doesn't suck for you. Like, is it a time thing? Play around with it. Like, what's the quickest thing you can do? Can you summarize you know how you felt today in one sentence? Like, go. Like, see just you know, or one word. I like to like challenge people to try and come up with a word that like encapsulates your day and just do that, you know, or there's lots of neat apps. I honestly, one of my favorite places right now in like the mental and like cognitive health tech space are journaling apps. There's like some really cool ones that people are using like for AI. Because the other thing about journaling that can be tough is like maybe you don't mind writing, but going you don't go back and read anything because you know, that's not maybe you're all about that catharsis of writing, but you don't really want to go back and read it or it's like cringy to read it. That's maybe I'm being like a little too autobiographical because I always hate reading my old journal entries. I'm always like, um, but I love some of the new ones um that are out there where it will, you know, kind of keep track and you can ask it. Then you have like a little AI guy in the journal that you're like, what are some patterns I might not be noticing or that I'm repeating in my days? Um and they help with all kinds of stuff. You don't like writing, you can do talk to text, you know. You you want to do pictures, you do pictures, whatever it may be. So I think if you're if you're big on hacks and this idea of like finding shorter ways, easier ways, quicker ways to do things, take something that has really solid evidence and a fairly simple implementation and play with the methodology. That's your safe playground. That's where the hacks can live. Don't screw around too much with something that doesn't have solid science backing. Don't screw around too much with something you can't explain easily or confidently do without any guidance. Like that's where I think you're gonna stumble and fall, and where a lot of hacks are starting, you know, will often go because that's a more exciting place to like live in and catch your attention on something like TikTok or Instagram.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

Yeah, and like B saying, the the hacks or shortcuts that you might be able to do kind of independently on your own are probably going to be those things you've already heard of. It's probably gonna be those things like, yeah, I know, or I've been told that it works, and maybe don't understand totally why, but I get it. But it's not probably gonna be the attractive, sexy, eye-catching thing that's on the latest internet article, right? So it probably probably will be those things where you're like, no, I think I know this works, I've heard it works, and then of course, working them backwards, as B was also saying, to figure out how it is gonna work for me. And we can't really do that without a little bit of awareness and metacognition, right? Of like, well, let's let's listen to Socrates and understand that the unexamined life is not worth living. So what's going on in my life, right? Like, where are there some gaps? And I could actually want to try to work backwards and feeling this way.

SPEAKER_02 35:47

This is also where experimentation, I think, and an experimental attitude and mindset is really helpful too. Where it might not work the first time you try something, try try again. I, you know, my biggest thing is not to focus on it didn't work, but why didn't it work? And what did work? Did anything work? Like maybe it didn't help you as much as you thought, but you really loved doing it. Okay. Like, what do you do with that? Um, play around with it. You know, you have your entire lifetime to experiment with things. And so I always encourage people to take that. Like, try it for a week one way. Find a way to like pick something like a goalpost that you can reflect back on. And God forbid, write it down. Like document it a little bit. Like, what do you want to get better? And like try it for a week and see, did it get better? Yes or no? Is it worth continuing? Do you want to tinker? Like, adjust something a little bit. Try it another week. Did it get better? Try it another week, did it get better? Is this maybe not the thing you actually want to get better? Okay, that's fine. Like, you can start fresh with that. Try this outcome, you know. All things are adjustable. And I think, you know, the idea of all or nothing, pass or fail, like, you know, succeed or lose, that's really the thing that's gonna get in your way. But if you want to play with hacks and like find something really cool that really works, even if it just works for you, like awesome, but you're gonna have to take that like experimental mindset to get there.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

And if you don't want to do it yourself, call us. But seriously, like hit us up. We'll work with you. We can figure out a customized plan. That's what that's that's what we do.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

It is what we do. And if you can't, you know, if you're like, I've got no capital whatsoever, you can leave a voicemail like our caller did, and be like, I've been experimenting with this stuff and I need help. We'll we'll we'll answer you, man. We'll put it on a podcast for all to see and and do what we can to help help you out. But yeah, I think uh, you know, it as with everything in life, hacks are not all good or all bad. But if they're not working, there's a lot of different reasons they might not be. So hopefully this podcast will help kind of folks out there tweak what they need to tweak to find some better outcomes for themselves.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

I think you addressed Isabel's question perfectly. Uh just to demonstrate that she isn't doing anything wrong. She can just move forward now and pick the best hacks for her. So thank you very much for joining us today. And we're going to have Anxiety Society roll us out. But we will see you again in a couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_02 38:26

If you have a question or a topic that you'd like to present to Firing and Wiring, be sure to email us at support at interceptlabs.com. Firing and Wiring is produced by Intercept Labs and is hosted by Jenna Mani, Nora Kennedy, and Bethany Rains. Our theme music is graciously provided by Anxiety Society because all the cool kids support Minneapolis music.