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In my experience this is literally true of physical energy (and noticeable on say a 2+ mile run on an empty stomach)… there’s about 30min in of glucose in the “tank” after which the fat burning kicks in. And that can go on past muscle fatigue. But mental “energy” is much weirder
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After years of floundering, I think I'm finally getting it: You get energy by spending it. The fuel tank metaphor is completely misleading. The body supplies energy to meet demand. The tank *expands* if you use a lot of fuel. In other words, biology is fundamentally antifragile
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I think “mental energy” that snaps you out of depressive cognition vicious cycles is a virtuous cycle of risky decisions and intermittent payoffs. Ie basic operant conditioning, but more complex than dopamine rewards. For me it feels like “on the trail of a thinking payoff”
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Literal energy plays less of a role because even hard thinking does not burn energy the way exercise does. Still it burns more than not-thinking. I can forget to eat for hours if I’m excited about say a bit of writing and at it for 6h. But if I pause I’ll notice I’m ravenous.
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I’d guess my correlates are: 60% having something non-instant to work on over 4-8h that I’m excited about 30% good nights sleep, no other worries or specific anxieties 10% being well nourished/hydrated/caffeinated… and this is optional if the 60% from motivation is strong
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So I've been listening to this book the Confident Mind and becoming somewhat convinced that, basically, you have more mental energy when you make yourself think about things that make you feel good (to really, really summarize it)
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my mental model of mental "energy" goes roughly like, you have a certain quantity of "attentons" or "decidons" that you fire like ammunition and reload mainly (but not exclusively) by sleeping
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I wonder if mental energy is weirder because it's more like an informational digestive process than a muscle you can exercise precisely with repetition. The challenge landscape for mental activity is changed by that activity, and it often gets stuck in big or small local minima
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