How I got into Mental Fitness

Or why I transitioned from DAOs & Web3 to Mental Health

12 months ago I left my job at a fast growing Web3 project and stepped down from DAO contributing.

I was burnt, had ADHD and crippling anxiety. After years denying the poor state of my mental health I had finally decided to make it a priority.

Even though I had been doing good materially speaking, things were getting out of hands. I had bad insomnias, was emotionally all over the place and was unhappy most of the time. My productivity was taking a big hit too. That summer 12 months ago I was on the perfect vacations but deep down I was struggling.

Fast forward to today:

• I feel increasingly peaceful and fulfilled each day.

• I sleep.

• I am more focused, more organized.

• I’ve built a higher resilience to stress.

• And I’ve started twoplus, a mental fitness community.

Behind most of the progress I’ve made is my mental fitness practice ; the bundle of mental workouts I do each day.

Want to loose weight? Put your running shoes on and watch your diet. Want to com back from anxiety, ADHD and burn out? create a routine with Wim Hof breathing, FAM/OMM meditation, NSDR and journaling.

That’s how I think about it.

I adopted the term “mental fitness” because the process feels really similar to physical exercise. Certain things just become a lot easier the fitter you become. Except here its not walking up the stairs that becomes easier but rather handling stress or focusing on your task at hand.

The same discipline that I had with physical exercise I could apply to my mental health: create a routine, train consistently, track progress, pay attention to my -information- diet, reflect and adjust. In just a few months I got my brain health from literally terrible to not bad at all.

To me, thinking of mental health as mental fitness was a big change. I realized that through my routines I could not only heal my anxiety and ADHD but I could expand some of my mental qualities. Improving my mental flexibility, strength, resilience, stamina and so on.

For example as I practiced focused attention meditation I reinforced my ACC (Anterior Cingulate Cortex below). Focusing, making decisions and regulating my emotions became easier.

source: Meditation Interventions to Rewire the Brain by Jeff Tarrant

As I followed NSDR protocols each day after lunch, I slowed down my overactive brain and activated my parasympathetic nervous system - the essential network we need to lower stress and improve sleep among many other things.

As I breathed to the instructions of Wim Hof first thing in the morning each day, my anxiety went down and my brain cleared up. This became an essential boot up routine.

The more I learned and experienced with all those techniques, the crazier it seemed to me that this knowledge wasn’t more accessible until I looked so hard for it.

Our brains and nervous systems are the operating systems behind everything we do, process and learn. They define our capacity to interact with the world. Yet today our digital lifestyles put them at risk and we ignore everything about how to train and nurture them properly.

For physical health we have doctors and then we have gyms. But for Mental Health we have therapists and meditation apps which is far from sufficient. Most of the wellness industry is cattered towards a minority of people.

Mental fitness is a missing piece in this -mental- health puzzle. Even if most (unfortunately too few) aren’t diagnosed with a mental illness, it doesn’t mean that working out (with meditation, NSDR or breathwork for example) isn’t highly beneficial for health, longevity, happiness and productivity.

Mental health lacks the gym culture and social incentives that would make it more desirable and accessible. At the same time the rise and appetite for mental fitness is inevitable because of our increasingly digital lifestyles. Which pushes me to raise awareness around it now because the need is so pressing.

If processed foods and sedentary lifestyles make us overweight, the ever going stimulis of technology cultivates ADHD and burn out. Just because we can’t see how bad our brains look on ADHD doesn’t mean that our information diets and mental habits impact do not impact our health. Actually, more and more data from smart objects now can act as proxies of how mentally healthy we are. For example with metrics like HRV (below) available on most consumer health devices.

It is still very early but the potential with mental fitness is huge. That’s why I spend my time either nerding about practices (currently reading this incredible incredible book) or building related projects.

In August we ran a first mental fitness course for Web3 folks at Twoplus. We’re now working on a much improved version of this course to happen in Q4. Let me know if you’re interested to connect as a participant or contributor.

In the meantime I’ll keep sharing my findings and progress here and on Twitter (maybe TikTok?).

Chat soon!

Louis