The x-risk case for exercise: to have the most impact, the world needs you at your best
I often see people who stopped exercising because they felt like it didn’t matter compared to x-risks. Especially if they have short timelines.
This is like saying that the best way to drive from New York to San Francisco is speeding and ignoring all the flashing warning lights in your car. Your car is going to break down before you get there.
Exercise improves your:
Energy
Creativity
Focus
Cognitive functioning.
It decreases:
Burnout
Depression
Anxiety
It improves basically every good metric we’ve ever bothered to check. Humans were meant to move.
Also, if you really are a complete workaholic, you can double exercise with work.
Some ways to do that:
Take calls while you walk, outside or on a treadmill
Set up a walking-desk. Just get a second hand treadmill for ~$75 and strap a bookshelf onto it et voila! Walking-desk
Read work stuff on a stationary bike or convert it into audio with all the text-to-speech software out there (I recommend Speechify for articles and PDFs and Evie for Epub on Android)
Of course, I recommend against being a workaholic. But even if you are one, there is just no excuse to not exercise. You will help the world more if you do.
Thanks Kat! Couldn’t agree more, I think self-care is essential, I wish there were more posts, or better yet more high quality comprehensive systematic health and mental health support for high-impact x-risk workers and a culture where this is acknowledged as important, I think this is an underrated crux for x-risk work.
It may seem like ‘fluff,’ but really I think the research is on our side! Would love to see what a quantitative case for exercise or other forms of self-care might look like.
I agree one way for supporting this is that you can read wok stuff while exercising. I actually like the “Milo” voice on Eleven Labs for reading work stuff even more than most audiobook narrators, it’s crazy how good text-to-speech has gotten, I get a lot of extra reading in through this and would highly recommend Eleven Labs.
Absolutely right. There’s really nothing better to bring clarity to your ideas than walking/running (outside if possible).