Originally posted by dydukas
Hello! Real nice guide so far. I especially liked the idea of preparing the project open for the morning. I often used to wake up full of energy and motivation to do something but my first morning task used to be checking various entertainment sites, like fml, reddit, etc and that killed the working mood.
Anyway, my biggest problem is caffeine. I read the section for it but I still don't see how I could get rid of this habit. Maybe because I don't really suffer the problems you mentioned. I sleep very well, I don't experience energy break downs after it wears off, on the whole I don't really feel much difference but a few - it makes the usual boring grinding go way faster and as you mentioned it motivates me do things with a smile on my face. I've recently tried and liked guarana powder which essentially has the same effect but is healthier. Would you still suggest that I should cut off any stimulating substances?
And another thing, you mentioned a glass of wine as a possible reward. I'm used to think that any amount of alcohol won't do any good. Would you recommend having a bit of wine, a bottle of beer or glass of something stronger while descreening before sleeping? I sometimes find it hard to not think about poker after a swingy day, maybe this would help.
Regarding the caffeine... That's quite interesting. Well, in general, I would still advise against the consumption of caffeine. If you are doing fine without it, then I do not see much of a reason to consume it at all. It's as if you were taking pills to cure a disease but weren't sick. As I said, it can be beneficial for sports performance, but I have not seen any studies that would show that it improves performance at work.
Regarding the guarana, it's certainly a less unhealthy option than coffee. I'm not exactly sure what you were comparing it to, but of course it has the same effects as caffeine as it contains caffeine ;). As far as I know, there aren't however any nutrients in guarana that would benefit your health - the only effective nutrient in it is caffeine, which as I have already mentioned before can be beneficial if you were a sportsman or perhaps for losing weight as well since it speeds up the metabolism.
You could also compare caffeine to revving a car engine into the high rpm. Do you think that is good for the car or not? Surely, it gives it very good performance in short periods of time, but it's control will be worse and it will likely break down sooner than a car which you don't push to the limits.
But since it seems to work for you, it is really up to you. I would suggest trying to stay off caffeine for a month and then decide whether you still want to consume it or not. It might be that the effects caffeine has on you are there simply because when you do not consume it, your body misses it and you feel like you have less motivation and everything is more boring. So if you stayed away from it for a couple of weeks, you would feel motivated and not bored again - without caffeine.
Regarding the alcohol, I agree with you - alcohol won't do any good. I definitely do not recommend alcohol. Neither do I recommend consuming sweets. But if for example you really like good wine or single malt whiskey or good cocktails, or maybe muffins, cupcakes, Belgian chocolate... it's still better that you drink them from time to time, in moderation, and stick to a healthy life style the rest of the time than taking away all the things you like.
Because some people might suffer too much if they stop eating/drinking everything they like and this might make them depressed, which then leads into a completely unhealthy lifestyle again.
To answer your question, it might help. The only way to find out is for you to try it ;). Just make sure you keep it in moderation. If you do not want to be thinking about poker in the evening because it causes you to have sleeping problems, there are also other solutions. Have you tried reading a book or a magazine in the evening? Non-fiction, scientific articles/books tend to work really good on putting your mind to sleep.
Another good way to focus your thoughts away from what has happened throughout the day would be meditation. I will describe a couple of meditation techniques later in the guide, but I really recommend you to read the book "The power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.
P.S. Are you sure that the fact that you cannot relax and stop thinking about poker is not correlated to the consumption of caffeine? Because caffeine can very well do just that - send signals to your mind that it has to constantly think about something or do something.
I hope I helped, if you should have any further questions, feel free to ask.
Best regards,
-SF
