A rant-tastic post about body hacking

People, prepare yourselves: we’re about to go all opinionated on you.

We like to think we don’t rant too much (unless you’ve met us in person, in which case Mish is very sorry for going off on one about the New Yorker and its “up-its-own-arse insistence on putting dotty things on the word ‘uncoöperative’”).

But today we’re ready to get accusatory and diatribey — albeit in our own British way that involves metaphorically hiding behind the curtains and defending our own behaviour all the way through. Today, we’re aiming our words at those disgusting, murderous people who, erm, just want to sleep better and feel healthier.

Let us explain what’s causing us to spit some feathers…

We read SO many blog posts by people who run businesses from around the world and try to “optimise” their productivity and health. They set themselves insane sleeping schedules (“Go to bed at 7pm, wake up at 2am, take a nap at midday…”), put themselves on restrictive and expensive Paleo-esque diets, and squeeze in exercise by doing push-ups in the aisle of the airplane or using small local children on the beach as weights. (We may have made that last one up.)

And a lot of the time, their posts are about how they’ve fallen off the exercise wagon, or eaten 8,000 calories in one sitting, or taken a nap that was 15 minutes longer than optimal (leading to a “downward productivity spiral that lasted three days”).

No one’s asking for our opinion on this, but for those who want to hear it: chill the heck out! We know a lot of people on Paleo or some sort of how-our-ancestors-used-to-eat variation, and, well, to be honest they don’t actually look that great. Some might say “pudgy”; others might say “chunky”; the New Yorker might say “blöâtéd”. It’s either because these diets are intrinsically unhealthy, or because the people on them simply don’t have the willpower or time to adhere to them properly. Either way, it’s a waste of time, energy and good dough (both literal and figurative).

The sleep thing is crazy too. For goodness’ sake: just go to bed at some point in the evening, get between six and eight hours’ sleep, and you’ll be fiiine. Take the odd power nap if you need to, don’t beat yourself up over an accidental lie-in, and quit with the excessive navel-gazing every time you’re feeling a bit sleepy.

Fitness: argggh! As soon as the next fitness fad is unleashed, they’re all over it like it’s going out of fashion — which, of course, it is. So they don’t get to see the benefits. And they spend so long talking, reading and writing about exercise — as well as buying the new equipment that the new fad requires — that they limit the time they’re actually able to burn some flipping calories or build some effing muscle.

We’re definitely not the picture of health or at the peak of fitness (get Mish to do one single push-up if you’re in need of a giggle). But at least we don’t spend so much time stressing over this stuff to absolutely no effect. Of course we worry about what we’re eating and drinking (especially Rob — who’s convinced our new obsession with salty tapas is causing heart palpitations and “love handles”), but we don’t do fads and we don’t create insane, unsustainable structures that would make us dread life.

Someone’s going to call us hypocrites because we set ourselves all sorts of crazy work-related goals, and because we love a new productivity app like others love chocolate. And that someone would be right: we definitely waste time when we freeze in fear at the amount of work we have to do, or when we spend an hour moving our to-do list from Workflowy to Trello.

But hey, we’ve just spent a good long newsletter getting angry instead of telling you about our latest “must try” working hacks. So, you know, we’re getting there. Ironically though, we have those damned health obsessives to thank for it.