Lies My Brain Tells Me Part 1: It Will Always Be This Way
A few of you know I’m slightly obsessed with my Oura ring. I’m not an early technology adopter, but I got it about three years ago because I wanted to know when I truly felt terrible. I was going through a stretch of repeatedly flipping day and night shifts, and I realized that I constantly felt horrible. Days after the last “flip,” I still felt terrible. Whenever I wasn’t working, I was lying on the couch. I put off exercising, telling myself I was “too tired” and needed rest. After that went on for a few more days, I started questioning whether I knew how I felt anymore. Was I physically tired, or was it my brain? If it was the former, continuing to skip the gym until I “felt better” was justified. If it was the latter, skipping the gym might be the worst thing for me. Hence, getting my Oura ring. I wanted physiological data about how I was faring to make better decisions. (The upshot is that my brain is usually way more tired than my body is, so I’m using the “If you’re still miserable about working out after 5 minutes, you can quit” trick a lot.)
A few days ago, my Oura ring expressed some concern. My resting heart rate was up, as was my respiratory rate. It switched into a mode where I couldn’t see my stress levels or how many steps I’d taken because it didn’t want me to strive for anything that day; it just wanted me to rest. Today, my Oura ring told me in no uncertain terms that things were not going well. Not only were my resting heart rate and respiratory rate still up, but my HRV was also at an all-time low, and my temperature had gone up 0.2℉. I got really annoyed quickly (but I would have to take my own word for it since Oura still wouldn’t let me see my stress levels). I’d been doing everything right the previous two days! I hadn’t had any alcohol, I’d meditated, I’d gone to bed at a reasonable hour, and even taken naps! (I’m currently on a staycation, making all of that “doing everything right” feasible.) That’s when I thought, “Ugh! It will always be like this! I’ll always be too tired, my body will always be fighting something off, and everything will always be a struggle, even when I’m doing everything right.”
When I take the time to listen to my thoughts, “It will always be like this” comes up often. Since it’s getting to my conscious thoughts frequently, it’s probably constantly bouncing around in my unconscious thoughts. “It will always be like this” is usually a signal of catastrophizing (because I never think, “It will always be like this” when things are going gloriously well) but also a great example of all-or-nothing thinking. All-or-nothing thinking tells us that things can only be one thing or another. Black and white. Ones and zeros. “Always” and “never.” Rationally, we know that life does not work this way. We know that the people we love most have flaws. We know that we have good qualities even when mired in our most profound moments of self-doubt. Nothing is 100% good or 100% bad - even that last thought, I suppose.
All-or-nothing thinking serves a purpose (otherwise, we wouldn’t be so prone to it). Instantly categorizing things takes a mental load off of our brain so that it can move on to other things. If I spend my focus pondering just what level of “annoying” a pile of garbage on the sidewalk is, I may miss the truck barrelling towards me in the crosswalk. It is better (and life-saving) to just reflexively decide the pile of garbage is 100% annoying to free up the mental space to pick up my pace in the crosswalk (hopefully with some mental space left over to give the guy driving the truck a dirty look).
Unfortunately, all-or-nothing thinking can also be a trap. When I bemoan that my Oura ring metrics will “always be like this,” it gives me little reason to try to improve things. If I’m going to feel awful anyway, I might as well have a couple of glasses of wine. If I’m fighting off some virus, I deserve to order the greasiest food delivery I can find. What’s the point of catching up on laundry? I’m obviously on death’s door. Falling into this all-or-nothing thinking just creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: if my Oura ring’s concerned about me now, what will it think after three days of burgers, fries, box wine, and sloth-like levels of activity?
I’m not even in the mood to give myself a pep talk, so I will inject some rationality into my thinking instead. My physiology won’t “always be like this” because it wasn’t like this until a few days ago: if I wasn’t actively dying a few days ago, it’s probably a safe bet that I’m not actively dying now. Maybe my system has been stressed for a while (which is precisely what my Oura ring data shows, BTW), so it will take more than a few days of eating well and resting to get things turned around. There’s a decent chance tomorrow’s numbers will look better, so “always” will only turn out to be about three days. It’s not black and white, ones and zeros. It’s gray. And fractions. And decimal points of fractions.
Where are you having all-or-nothing thinking? Your job? The political landscape? Your family? More importantly, where is it serving you, and where is it just tripping you up? Where could you use some rationality? Things will not always be this way if you’re in a low period. Conversely, things will not always be this way if you’re in a good period. Rationally, we know that to be true, but if you want a little mysticism to the concept, Buddhism teaches that change is the only constant; all else is impermanent. Like the weather. And our relationships. And politics. And (fingers crossed) my Oura ring.