All protocols

Engage in physical movement as a baseline self-care practice.

Think through, discuss, or write your life story to identify when things changed, what influenced those changes, and what questions to ask next.

Write out your life history or narrative, including age ranges, places lived, and key events; organize notes by periods such as 0–5, 6–10, and revisit them over time to add newly remembered events.

If experiencing thoughts of self-harm, not wanting to be alive, despair, hopelessness, or feeling unsafe or unstable, get clinical help rather than relying on self-inquiry alone; advocate for yourself and push to get in front of a clinician.

During liminal states between sleep and wakefulness, block outside sensory input, especially social media and the news, to allow unconscious insights to surface.

If there is something you feel you cannot bring into consciousness because it might take over your mind, that is exactly what should be examined, provided it is done safely.

Use old pictures, talk to people who knew you at different stages of life, reflect on how you behaved and what you felt inside, and anchor yourself to memories in order to identify changes and extrapolate patterns.

Examine yourself with some dispassion or observational distance by mentally standing outside yourself and observing without excessive negative emotion.

Stop and ask why you do things automatically, such as going to work or staying busy, in order to uncover unconscious drivers.

If a habitual route leads to unwanted drinking, interrupt the chain by driving a different way home; if needed, have a friend ride with you or even put yourself in the back seat so you cannot drive there.

He rejects the advice 'never go to sleep angry'; instead, don't use exhaustion to force agreement because people feel differently after sleep.

Follow the basic pillars of a generally healthy diet; it does not need to be perfect, but should be good overall most of the time.

During long, demanding operations, take time off or decompress rather than running yourself into the ground; sometimes that means stepping away, having a beer, kicking back, and blowing off steam.

Laughter, joking, and good-natured ribbing with supportive colleagues can help lighten emotional heaviness.

Insert a deliberate transition gap between task A and task B to improve task switching. Even 10-15 seconds helps; commonly 60-90 seconds to 2 minutes, and up to 5-10 minutes if the prior task involved deep focus. If only a very short transition is available, explicitly recognize it as transition time and count from 10 to 1 or 1 to 10.

During the transition period, keep attention relatively free of new inputs. Do not look at your phone, text, use social media, forage for information, insert extra tasks, or attend to irrelevant environmental stimuli. The goal is to limit the total amount of new information entering the nervous system before the next demanding task.

Consume a glucose beverage of about 150 calories between demanding tasks; the literature and discussion also mentioned sipping a glucose drink during or between hard tasks to maintain repeated performance, based on glucose as a preferred fuel source for the brain.

To build tenacity and willpower, add some exercise that is not already part of your routine; continuing habitual exercise may maintain but not further build this capacity.

Take on learning something difficult that you resist doing, such as a musical instrument, a second or third language, dancing, gymnastics, pottery, music, math, or art. Framed as a way to engage the anterior mid-cingulate cortex and build tenacity.

Periodically add small, safe, mildly aversive challenges that create manageable friction and build tenacity; examples include adding one extra set at the end of 3–5 sets of an exercise, doing 100 jumping jacks after a hard run, or sitting still for 5 minutes after a lesson and thinking about the material instead of jumping on your phone. Do not overdo them all day long.

Resist checking your phone during workouts, including text messaging and reading email, as a small act of willpower training.

Avoid becoming sedentary; framed as part of staying away from apathy and toward tenacity and willpower.

After successfully doing the hard thing or resisting the tempting thing, occasionally—not always—provide yourself with a reward you like, ideally something healthy and safe. Rewards should be random or occasional rather than every time.

Mentioned as reducing negative feeling; discussed as affecting affective state.

When stuck in unpleasant internal feeling states, direct attention outward; examples include going for a run or walk. This is described as reducing the prominence of internally derived features of experience.

Train yourself to interpret bodily arousal differently; examples given include experiencing heart pounding as determination and getting your 'butterflies flying in formation' rather than treating arousal as fear.

Do not automatically turn negative affect into a full emotional narrative; sometimes the productive move is to address the physical-state issue first. Examples given include checking for sleep loss, eating, walking, or stretching.

Be kind in general, including through random acts of kindness; described as underrated and beneficial for both people involved, with body-budgeting benefits to the giver as well.

If you are concerned about yourself or someone else having a serious mood or mental health disorder, seek help from a licensed clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or other qualified healthcare professional.

Do not overeat; energy toxicity is a problem for body composition and mental health.