Self-improvement, health work, biohacking, whatever you call it, without a destination is just damage control. You can raise metabolism, lower PUFA, optimize your circadian rhythm, and still feel like you’re only managing decline. That is because the organism does not organize itself around “not being sick.” It organizes itself around meaningful activity and tasks.
An impaired environment is real. Light, food, isolation, and chronic stress suppress energy, and relieving that load matters. But energy is not an end. It is the means by which a person becomes equal to something worth doing. Without a demand that actually calls the mind forward, restored metabolism has nowhere to go except back into self-surveillance.
Do something worth doing, create something beautiful.
"A person's vitality is drawn forward by meaningful work, that is, we grow to meet the demands of an important opportunity. Frans Hals' paintings could only have been done by an alert mind, and one which had been alert for a long time learning the skills of drawing and painting." - Ray Peat
“The thing associated with just ordinary eczema, and that's because when your thyroid is low, the circulation to your intestine is poor, the serotonin is high, and this combination of endotoxin and serotonin, for example, will cause the skin to have abnormal growth patterns.”
- Ray Peat
Due to its antiserotonergic and antihistamine properties, cyproheptadine, can be a very good tool in fighting eczema.
This past week I’ve been using 0.5-1.0 mg a night as a sleep aid. Throughout the course of this week, all of my eczema has cleared up.
When I was a teenager, I got into the bro self-improvement sphere. I was doing the cold showers, fasting, running three miles a day, reading the improvement books, and avoiding sugar. Embracing suffering for the sake of improvement. I was convinced that anything that felt good was bad or weak.
Even prior to learning of Dr. Peat, part of me would ask: improvement for what? Suffering for the sake of what?
There was no vision, direction, or purpose. I was “improving” a pointless life, and from my experience, adding a routine of suffering doesn’t get you any further from that feeling.
Peating has given me the energy to realize life can simply be good. The food can be good, leisure can be good, and routine can be good. Things can just be good. There isn’t some convoluted meaning behind them. To me, this doesn’t mean that pain, suffering, and struggle aren’t necessary for growth, but energy and goodness have to exist to facilitate growth from struggle.
However, even with bioenergetics, you can fall into the trap of improving for the sake of improvement. Peating gives you the energy to find your purpose, and you must seek it out. You must use that energy to create, shape your environment, explore, and become the person you were meant to be.