I would like to take a media fast. Why am I doing this? Lately, videos, news, internet browsing, checking email, and music are what I have been using to cope with stress. I don’t think this is a good arrangement. I would like to replace it with a combination of meditation, exercise, making teas, reading books, and making conversation.

America is a very media-saturated culture. While this has many positives, it also creates trivial obsessions that I think almost everyone would agree are not the wisest use of their time or mental resources. Absorbing too much media tends to limit creativity and produce a feeling of dependence, at least in my experience. When I have done similar experiments in the past, everyday life became more interesting, since I was not constantly letting myself get distracted by these other sources.

So, here are the ground rules for this month:

• No videos. This includes video productions, episodes, YouTube clips, and anything else, except what is required for classes.
• No news. The only exception I will give myself for this is to glance at the headlines in a news magazine on weekends if I would like.
• No internet browsing unless for important reasons. Some of these reasons might include looking up information about the MCAT, looking up a concept I am struggling with in one of my classes, or researching a specific topic on my blog or other website. However, this should be the extent of the time I spend on the internet, and even this should be strictly monitored.
• No checking email more than once a day. I can check more than once if I am expecting something urgent, but other than that, I want to stick to this rule.
• No listening to music or other audio while exercising or stretching. I can meditate during this time, do some productive thinking, or just fully apply myself to what I am doing. 

I hope to pick up some new habits during this month and become less prone to distraction. Wish me luck!

I developed what I believe to be virtually a fail-proof method of getting up when you want to the first half of this year. All it requires is for one to follow a very simple, preexisting set of rules. No pre-sleep coaching, motivational tactics, or special alarm clocks are necessary. In fact, the success of this system does not depend on what you do the moment your alarm goes off in the morning.

Unfortunately for me, I stopped using this system a couple months ago due to some depression concerning existential questions. This happened because I did not follow the four tips mentioned in my last blog post on auditing beliefs. As a result of this, I fell out of a consistent sleep schedule.

This month, I want to formally start using this system again. The challenge therefore is to simply follow the rules of the system. I will post a complete version of these soon for everyone’s benefit. Here are the highlights:

1. Set your alarm clock for when you know you will get up now. The worst thing you can do to your sleep schedule is to practice a bad habit. This is similar to practicing a musical instrument. You won’t help yourself by playing a passage wrong 5 times and then playing it right once and calling that success. Only practice perfectly. Do whatever it takes (play really slowly, only focus on one aspect, etc.) to accomplish this. So, with getting up, I want my body to develop a subconscious response to an alarm clock going off. So, let’s say I need to be somewhere 15 minutes away at 8AM. Then, I might set my alarm for 7:35. This gives me 5-10 minutes to shower, get dressed, grab something to eat on the way, and get out the door. When the alarm goes off, I know I must get up right then or be late.
2. Practice getting up during the day. Simulate bedtime conditions as much as possible, set the alarm for two minutes past the current time and attempt to doze off. When the alarm goes off, jump out of bed and complete a 3-5 minute wake-up routine. Mine mainly involves mobility stretches.
3. Plan for “failure.” Don’t look at oversleeping as a true failure. Don’t feel guilty about it. There should be a plan you have already written down about what to do if this happens. Just follow that. The goal is to “train” your subconscious response. So, if you didn’t get up, that is not your fault; it just means your subconscious is not working perfectly yet.
4. Be vigilant about bed times. Although this system does not depend upon forcing yourself to get up at a certain time, it does depend on being consistent with when you turn the lights off. There are a few guidelines on how to find the right time interval for sleeping, and this will be discussed when I post the full system.

The beauty of this system is it takes off the pressure of having to get up at a certain time and then feeling like trash when you don’t. If you are still unclear about how this translates into getting up when you want, wait for the full system details in an upcoming post.

The challenge for me this month is to follow this system, with the 4 highlights above being strictly adhered to. In my next post, I will share about my month of perfect alignment.

It really is quite amazing how much more at peace I feel when the environment I am in is neat and tidy. Granted, the disorder of my surroundings is not what usually causes stress in my life; it is usually the other way round: stress causes my surroundings to become chaotic. However, when I make the small pockets of time to keep things in their place, I definitely am able to think more clearly and this usually indirectly reduces stress. Briefly, a few lessons I’ve learned this past month:

• When surroundings are orderly, objects are not lost. When I kept things neat and organized, I tended not to lose things. In fact, the definition of order means that things are not lost. However, if I did misplace something (usually due to being lax with the challenge), the quickest and most stress-free way to find it was to just start cleaning up. I experienced this by accident the first week. I could not find my phone and started randomly and then frantically searching. I was not having success and just decided to clean up the room instead, since it was somewhat messy. The first thing I picked off the floor, literally, revealed my phone underneath. I wasn’t even expecting to find it, thinking I must have left it in another room or in the car!
• It is easy to keep things neat if you always put things away. Now, let me say first off that this obviously does not apply if you have kids. However, when you are the only person contributing to the disorder in a room or environment, taking the extra second or two to hang the shirt up in the closet, put the book back on the shelf, or straighten the sheets makes a world of difference.
• Small, quick cleanings are awesome. It is possible to keep floors vacuumed, rooms dusted, and rooms tidied as long as you are always doing small things. Just 10 minutes of cleaning per day makes an hour a week, which can be significant. Now, these cleanings are not thorough, just enough to keep things looking decent and relatively sanitary.

What I would like to take away from this past month is to always leave a room in a general semblance of order. If this becomes a lifestyle then it can become as second nature as showering every morning or checking email.

This monthly challenge will be different than my previous ones in that it will literally affect every moment of my life for the next month. Exceptions to always smiling should only be made when it would definitely not be appropriate, such as hearing news of someone’s death. So, what counts as a smile? Below will be my thought pattern.

1. Always smile with the eyes. To be sure, smiling is done with the mouth. However, think about smiling and communicate this through the eyes even if there is not much upward curve of the lips.
2. For close-lipped smiles, make the faintest hint of smiling with the teeth and then close the lips. This will ensure that the curve of the lips is enough to make a smile, but not excessive, which can look weird with close-lipped smiles.
3. Try smiling with the teeth unless it feels awkward in the current environment. A lot of the time this type of smiling should work fine. The two main exceptions I can think of are while in class and sleeping.

I have been rather moody the past few weeks and this greatly affected my monthly challenge of decisiveness, which I will share about in my next blog post. For this reason as well as to help me live fully in the present moment, I believe consciously smiling for an entire month will be a great experiment. One change I am making starting with this month is not including philosophical appointed times as part of the challenge. These times should be a sanctuary both from scheduled tasks and activities as well as from my monthly challenges. This doesn’t mean I can’t smile during these times, it just means I don’t have to smile.

One hypothesis I want to test with this experiment is that a person will feel happier if they smile. If this is true, and I want to experience as much happiness as possible (who doesn’t?) then I will put more effort into smiling as a general paradigm to minimize depression.