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3MM: Monk Mode, Sleep & Bravery
3 MINUTE MONDAYHi friend, Neutonic just launched our first ever Variety Pack in the UK. So if you've ever been Neutonic-curious but can't decide which flavour to buy - you can now get a single tray of 12 cans in 4 flavours. Shop Neutonic Variety Packs before they sell out. (UK-only for now) I’ve been thinking about The Dark Side Of Monk Mode. Monk Mode has grown to huge popularity over the last few years as a self-improvement strategy, especially for men. It’s a retreat from the world to focus on the 3 I’s - Introspection, Isolation and Improvement. Despite its recent ascendence, it is nothing new, Illimitable Man was writing about this back in 2014: “Monk mode is a temporary form of MGTOW, by cutting yourself off from the rest of the world for a while you can fine-tune your focus, calibrate your direction and confront yourself.
You’ll be acknowledging your weaknesses and then formulating a plan of action to deal with them.
The focus is on “minimising your time contribution to social obligations and junk activities because these consume much of your time whilst yielding little to negligible increase towards your social market value.
Monk mode is a serious commitment that is not to be half-assed.
You’re either doing it, or you’re not.
It’ll be a struggle in the beginning, but once you’re fully engaged it becomes a beneficial, productive and dare I say even addictive lifestyle.”
I have gone full Monk Mode a number of times in my life, with great success. 2017, 2018, then mid-2019 basically straight through Covid until 2021. I’ve cut out alcohol for over 2000 days in the last 8 years. Gone 500 days without caffeine. 1500+ sessions of meditation. 5+ years of daily journals filled, 300+ sessions of yin yoga, probably 500+ hours of Stu McGill’s Big 3. All done in a bedroom in Newcastle Upon Tyne UK, sat, on my own, usually first thing in the morning. Almost all of the most important progress I have ever made was facilitated by a concentrated period like this. However, Monk Mode’s reliable effectiveness creates a problem. The dark side is the final two words from IM’s breakdown above… “Addictive lifestyle.” The problem is that Monk Mode justifies a retreat from life, risk taking and adventure as self development. It makes you feel noble in isolation. So much so that it can become hard to bring yourself back out. This means that if you already have a tendency to live a sheltered, unsocial life, you’re encouraging yourself to abscond even further away from ever building a real-life support network - the thing which you actually need most in the long run. I saw this in a friend over a decade ago who was on a fitness journey. He was already introverted and socially shy, then his upcoming fitness competition justified 8pm bedtimes, militant routines and the rejection of all social invites. The competition came and went, but the routine didn’t change. It took years for him to re-venture out into some sense of normality. This is largely a personal reflection too. The allure of perpetually working on yourself is high. Improvement is rewarding. But if you’re not careful, you can spend the rest of your life focussed on the 3 I’s at the expense of the actual reason you did Monk Mode in the first place - to be able to show up in the world in a better way. Bill Perkins says that “delayed gratification in the extreme results in no gratification”. With Monk Mode, you practise in private so you can perform in public. Private practise in the extreme results in no public performance. TLDR: Don’t obsess for too long in solitude for personal growth or you’ll struggle to reintegrate. Solution: Periodise. Set a deadline for your Monk Mode to end. 3-6 months is a sweet spot in my experience. Do longer if you’ve not done it before, shorter if you’re further along your journey. MODERN WISDOMI do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. This week’s upcoming episodes: Monday. Thursday. Saturday. THINGS I'VE LEARNED1. One of the most important sleep studies ever ran a brutally simple test. People slept 4h, 6h, or 8h per night for 14 days. No all-nighters. Just “normal” short sleep. Cognitive performance was tested every two hours. By day 14: 6 hours = same impairment as being awake for 24 hours. 4 hours = same as 48 hours awake. But here’s the scary part - after day 3–4, people stopped feeling more tired. Reaction times kept slowing, attention lapses kept increasing, working memory kept degrading. But subjective sleepiness flatlined. Your brain keeps getting worse, your ability to notice it breaks. This is why chronic undersleeping feels sustainable - you adapt to feeling tired but you do not adapt to being cognitively impaired. The participants would’ve told you they felt “okay”. Objectively, they were functioning like they’d pulled an all-nighter. If you’re sleeping 6 hours and think you’re fine, you’ve probably lost calibration. Sleep need is biological. Most adults need 7–9 hours. “I only need 6” usually means “I forgot what normal feels like.” Feeling fine is not evidence you’re functioning well. Chronic sleep loss doesn’t just impair your brain - it blinds you to the impairment. — h/t Aakash Gupta 2. “Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.” — Anaïs Nin, 1939 3. Your system is designed to handle stress and challenge but not complication. You probably handle hard things pretty well but feel overwhelmed when they become messy. Do not attribute to difficulty that which can be explained by complexity. LIFE HACKJet lag only happens if you permit yourself to be timecucked by your new location. I’m in Qatar for 3 days and am refusing to change to the timezone. Plan has been: stay on CWT (Chris Williamson Time). 2pm wake, 5am go to bed. One more day to go, currently it’s working surprisingly well. Will report back if my brain explodes when I return to Austin. Big love, Share this article with your friends here. PS |
3 Minute Monday
Podcaster with 1bn+ plays. I write about the most important lessons from the best thinkers on the planet. 300,000+ people read my free newsletter. Press subscribe to join.
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