⚒️ How I Stay Happy - Tools & How to Get Started

How I got healthy, healed past wounds, and found a new sense of peace, joy & meaning in life.

Intro

Hi, I'm Bartosz.

I used to suffer from depression, burnout, addiction, anxiety, and panic attacks.

Over the last 4 years, I’ve dedicated my life towards healing & feeling good again.

This article is a rundown of techniques, exercises & protocols (aka ⚒️Tools) I’ve used (& still use) to get healthy, heal past wounds, and find a new sense of peace, joy & meaning in life.

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Reading further along you’ll learn about tools such as 🌤️Meditation, 🌬️Breathwork, or 🧘🏽‍♀️Yoga, but also more unusual ones, such as 🌀Self-hypnosis, 👩‍👩‍👧‍👧Internal Family System Self-Therapy, 🛡️ Fear Setting, 🤽🏼Floating & many others.

Each tool is accompanied by a short description, a list of benefits & detailed instructions on “How to get started” from world-leading experts.

Importantly, the majority of these tools are zero-cost, science-based, and can be started here & now, often even without leaving the comfort of your home.

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Starting my healing journey, I didn’t know most of these tools even existed.

Now, they are a foundation of my daily life & happiness.

I hope they serve you just as well.

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Table of contents

I. 🌅 Tools I use daily or every other day

1. 🌤️ Meditation

2. 🌬️ Breathwork

3. 🧘🏽‍♀️ Yoga

4. 🖊️ Journaling : Morning Pages

5. 🤲 Gratitude

6. 🏋️ Strength Training

7. ☀️ Morning Sunlight

8. 🚶🏾 Walking

II. 🧰 Tools I regularly come back to or helped in the past

9. 🛋️ NSDR

10. 👩‍👩‍👧‍👧 Internal Family Systems (IFS) Self-Therapy

11. 🌀 Self-Hypnosis

12. 💆‍♂️ Talk Therapy

13. 🧊 Cold Immersion

14. 🤸‍♀️ Movement

15. 🛡️ Fear-Setting

16. 🤽🏼 Floating

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I. 🌅 Things I do daily or every other day

🌤️1. Meditation

Will @Sym_Fit

Tim Ferris has interviewed hundreds of the world's top billionaires, icons and world-class performers More than 80% of these do some sort of mindfulness or meditation practice daily

Days when I don’t meditate just don’t feel the same.

Peace of mind
Being really here
Aura of warmth & softness
Power through clarity
Finding joy in ordinary
Breakthroughs & healing
Love

These are just a couple of things I owe to meditation.

Getting started was hard.

So was building a consistent practice.

But now, I can’t imagine my life without it.

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⬇️ How to get started?

This podcast clip is what made me finally click with meditation after a couple of previous unsuccessful trials

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🌬️2. Breathwork

neurohacker

A post shared by Neurohacker Collective (@neurohacker)

Breathwork is my go-to tool to quickly reduce stress.

The biggest benefit of breathwork is how fast it works.

Even when I’m super overwhelmed, a couple of rounds of physiological sighs or box breathing (explained below), are usually enough to bring me back to peace.

Also, breathwork is a great way to enter deep meditative states.

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⬇️ How to get started:

Below you can find tutorials for the 3 breathwork techniques I use most often:

1. Physiological Sigh (stress relief)

2. Box Breathing (stress relief)

3. 4-7-8 Breath (sleep)

PS. If you’re in Warsaw, you could also check out Psychedelic Breath workshops

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🧘🏽‍♀️3. Yoga

Gris @ooitmm

Health is wealth. Peace of mind is happiness. Yoga shows the way.

Yoga is a way back to the present.

I picked up yoga as a way to alleviate back pain.

It worked (and still works) wonders.

But it’s not why I keep coming back to the mat.

Yoga is my way out of the mind & its anxieties, through the body, back to the peaceful present.

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⬇️ How to get started?

My favourite yoga teacher got you covered

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🖊️4. Journaling : Morning Pages

V A L E N C I A @SayItValencia

Journaling can save your mind, do not sleep on that practice.

Journaling saved me.

It’s the glue that kept me together in the darkest days, the therapist I confided to when I couldn’t afford therapy, the magic spell I still cast to fill my days with love.

Using just pen & paper, I’ve been able to untangle layers of trauma, come up with my best ideas, and learn to appreciate the good in life.

While there are many journaling techniques you could use, one I absolutely swear by is Morning Pages.

This practice is as simple as it gets: just write whatever is on your mind down on paper, ideally in the morning.

The result?

Amazing (& addictive) sense of clarity.

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⬇️ How to get started?

Here’s an exact instruction I’ve followed to embark on my journey:

Start your morning by going straight from bed or meditation practice to the place you love sitting comfortably in.

Take a notebook and a pen, but don't even look at your phone or any other screen.

Write in your notebook whatever comes to your mind — dreams, ideas, random gibberish.

Keep writing. Don't stop, don't go back to re-read, don't edit or censor your writing. Just keep writing.

Finish after reaching the end of page 3.

Take a breath and notice how you feel.

Morning pages don't need to solve your problems. They simply need to get them out of your head, where they will otherwise bounce all around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull.

Could bitching and moaning on paper for 5 minutes each morning can change your life? As crazy as it seems, I believe the anwser is yes.

- TIM FERRIS, Tools of Titans

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🤲5. Gratitude

Justin Kan ❄️ @justinkan

3. Practice gratitude everyday - helps you re-contextualize daily events and makes you focus on the positive things that are going well. Every morning, I write down three things that I am grateful for.

Gratitude is both an immediate mood booster & a new, happier lens to view the world through.

An antidote to dissatisfaction?

Yeah, pretty much.

My way of practicing gratitude is through pen&paper journaling, twice daily.

First time, in the morning, writing down whatever comes to mind - from abstract things like “learning to trust my intuition” or “all roads that led to today” to concrete ones like “spectacular pink-orange sunrise” or “my best friends & greatest loves - Hugi & Nati”.

Second time, in the evening, concentrating on actual life events that happened during the day - from doing great at work, through delicious dinner, to my kid giving me a big hug.

It takes just a couple of minutes a session, but over time radically changes the way you see your world.

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⬇️How to get started?

1. Watch this fantastic video from Kurzesagt

2. Write down (ideally on paper, but Notes app is fine too) 2 amazing things that already happened to you today.

   1. ….

   2. …

3. Notice how you feel.

4. If you liked it, repeat tomorrow, the day after it, ad inifinitum.

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🏋️ 6. Strength Training

Jonathan Goodman @itscoachgoodman

Strength training to improve mental health is vastly underrated.

Strength training = the feeling of power.

Lifting heavy stuff is counter-weight (😉) for feeling powerless, a common theme among the darker days.

It’s also a great outlet for turbulent emotions.

The looks, the health, the feeling of satisfaction?

Yes, they’re also part of the deal.

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⬇️ How to get started?

The Science of How to Build Muscle: Full Guide by Julian Shapiro

or

Foundational Fitness Protocol - Huberman Lab

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☀️ 7. Morning sunlight

Andrew D. Huberman, Ph.D. @hubermanlab

Get your sleep & daytime energy and mood right: Get sunlight in your eyes as early in your day as possible. Especially on cloudy days. Extra time outside if you wake up late. Sunglasses off if you safely can. Eye glasses and contacts fine. Lights bright by day, sun-off at night.

Science says morning sunlight is the foundation of feeling well.

Mood, sleep quality, energy levels, and ability to focus all greatly benefit from being outdoors in the morning.

Even though my son hates getting dressed & my wife is a warm-loving soul, I still manage to get us out 95% of the mornings - it’s that important.

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⬇️ How to get started?

Find your way to let that morning sunlight in.

It can be a walk, a bike ride, or just standing on the balcony, whatever works for you.

Andrew D. Huberman, Ph.D. @hubermanlab

Redundancy has its place. Sunlight before screen light mashup:

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🚶🏾 8. Walking

Anne-Laure Le Cunff @anthilemoon

Going for a walk is the most underrated mental health hack.

A walk is a cheat code for calm & creativity.

Unsolvable problems suddenly find solutions.

Peace-robbing anxieties dissolve without a trace.

Bad moods lift up.

All thanks to the the simplest of all activities - walking.

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⬇️ How to get started?

I bet you can figure that one out on your own 😉

For further walking encouragement, see the graphic below.

Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom

Researchers studied the effects of a 20-minute walk on the cognitive performance of a group of children. This is fascinating…

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II. 🧰 Tools I use occasionally or helped in the past

🛋️ 9. NSDR

Andrew D. Huberman, Ph.D. @hubermanlab

Google CEO @sundarpichai uses NSDR (Non-Sleep Deep Rest) protocols. I personally have been using NSDR daily for ~10 years and find them to be among the more powerful tools out there for recovering lost sleep, focus (after) & neuroplasticity. Refs on HLP.

businessinsider.comGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai says he uses NSDR, or ‘non-sleep deep rest,’ to unwind. Here’s what it is and how it works.NSDR involves “self-inducing a state of calm” and “directing our focus to something,” typically through two practices, says Stanford’s Andrew Huberman.

I think of NSDR as a reset button for my nervous system & thus wellbeing.

Non-Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR) is a type of meditation technique that aims to promote deep relaxation and rejuvenation in the minimal amount of time.

Let’s say I had a really tough day, my mind is bursting at the seams with stimuli, thoughts & stress.

10 minutes of lying on the bed, listening to Dr. Andrew’s soothing voice, and I feel like a new man.

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⬇️ How to get started?

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👩‍👩‍👧‍👧10. Internal Family Systems Self-Therapy

IFS created some of the most profound transformations on my healing journey.

IFS is an evidence-based approach to psychotherapy, that can be also used as a self-therapeutic tool (that’s how I used it).

Some IFS sessions helped me uncover memories & heal corresponding trauma all the way back to earliest childhood.

Others generated tectonic shifts in ability to love.

Still others empowered me to break through plateaus in work.

All without a therapist.

Magic ✨

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⬇️ How to get started?

Read this book 📚

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🌀 11. Self-hypnosis

Joey @josephamiller

2/ Self-hypnosis, using apps like @reveri_health which has been touted by @hubermanlab, is a state of deep relaxation where your mind is more receptive to positive suggestions. This allows you to quickly reprogram your subconscious mind and change negative thought patterns.

Here’s one for emergencies.

Whenever I feel like my mind is racing to the point that sleep seems impossible I type in “Michael Sealey sleep hypnosis” into Spotify or Youtube, and a couple of minutes later I’m out.

It doesn’t end here - on more than a few occasions, these sleep hypnosis sessions were followed by massive breakthroughs the day after.

PS. There are many other use cases for self-hypnosis, inc. focus & performance, breaking bad habits, and reducing stress, but I have limited experience here.

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⬇️ How to get started?

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💆‍♂️ 12. Talk Therapy

Therapy exceeded my wildest expectations & turned out to be one of the most important tools on my journey.

I was reluctant to start therapy.

Yet from today's perspective, it’s obvious that our virtual meetings with Mr. Krzysztof started one of the best periods of my life.

If I had known how life-changing therapy is, I would have started years earlier.

If you’re hesitating, go for it.

It’s really worth it.

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⬇️ How to get started?

There are many variables to consider before starting therapy, and I don’t feel competent advising on this matter.

Not to leave you empty-handed, here’s a link to the therapist I’ve worked with & here’s one to book a free call with Therapy Guide @ Wellbee.pl (disclaimer: I worked with Wellbee in the past, but this is NOT a sponsored ad)

If you would like to read a detailed report from my therapy - click here (only in Polish).

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🧊 13. Cold immersion

Wim Hof @Iceman_Hof

When you go into the cold, you cannot think. You have to be. You learn to be, to be the best version of yourself.

Cold helped me develop toughness & self-belief.

I had a couple of periods when I did daily cold plunges in a nearby pond.

I’ll be honest with you - stepping into ice-cold water, often in bad Polish weather, demanded A LOT of willpower.

The reward?

Feeling like you could survive anything.

Invincible.

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⬇️ How to get started:

Wim Hof @Iceman_Hof

You have to take a shower anyway, right? So, it’s very simple. Just end up cold. One minute or two, tops. And then, if you wish, after the ten days (once your body has reconditioned itself) you can increase the exposure.

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🛡️ 14. Fear-Setting

Tim Ferriss @tferriss

I do an exercise called “fear-setting” at least once a quarter, often once a month. Fear-setting has produced my biggest business and personal successes, as well as repeatedly helped me to avoid catastrophic mistakes.👇 tim.blog/2017/05/15/fea…

tim.blogFear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month - The Blog of Author Tim FerrissI do an exercise called “fear-setting” at least once a quarter, often once a month. It is the most powerful exercise I do. Fear-setting has produced my biggest business and personal successes, as well as repeatedly helped me to avoid catastrophic mistakes. The above TED talk gives you an overview,…

I turn to Fear-setting when I feel stuck.

From my observations, the feeling of being stuck is often a disguise for the hidden fear of going for the thing I really want.

Fear Setting allows me to expose & understand my subconscious blockages, and that alone is often enough to overcome them & take action.

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⬇️ How to get started?

All you need, explained by the creator of the technique.

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🤸 15. Movement

My first experience with movement felt like a portal to a new dimension of being.

For the first time in conscious memory, I felt one with the body, sensing the world directly through it.

What is movement, and what are its benefits?

Below video explains & shows it 10x better than I ever could.

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⬇️ How to get started?

That’s not an obvious one.

One place to start would be Ido Portal’s Instagram or Youtube

If you’re in Berlin, you could try what got me into Movement - Techno Flow Workshop with Saida Makhmudzade

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🤽🏼 16. Floating

Floating is a teleport to a state of consciousness I’ve only been able to reach after dozens of hours of meditating.

“There is no sound, no sight, no temperature gradient, and no gravity. So all of the brain’s searching and gating information from the environment is relaxed. Everything that was in the background—kind of ‘behind the curtain’—can now be exposed. When done consistently over time, it’s essentially like meditation on steroids” - Dr. Dan Engle

What got exposed during my floating sessions is a topic for a longer essay.

For now, let me just say, I still consider my first floating one of the most important (& psychedelic) experiences of the lifetime.

Michael Lee Nirenberg @MLNirenberg

Did an hour session in an isolation floatation tank this morning. Still processing but it was most certainly like having a psychedelic experience.

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⬇️ How to get started?

Book a visit in a floating center next to where you live.

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🈚 Bonus

🐼 Zen

It’s in Zen where I found the answers nobody & nothing else could answer.

While calling Zen a tool is a major understatement, I just couldn’t not include it in this list of life-enhancing practices.

What is Zen?

“We are learning to love, tend, and cherish our experience, whatever it may be.” - Henry Shukman, Zen Master

“Zen practitioner can celebrate, with stillness of mind, a life directed toward the concrete thing-events of everyday life and nature” - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

“Mastering the principles of Zen can make the critical difference in leading us toward a meaningful and fulfilling life” - Maria Popova

“Zen is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that emphasizes simplicity, present-moment awareness, nonduality, nonconceptual understanding, and zazen (“just sitting”) meditation—the tradition’s most important practice” - Tricycle, Buddhism for Beginners

“Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.” - D.T. Suzuki, Zen Scholar

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If this got you interested, here are three great beginner-friendly books on Zen

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice

One Blade Of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir

Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

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If you want even more, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

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Disclaimers:

A. Keep in mind, these tools are just tools.

None of them will truly work if you skip the foundations such as:

👨‍⚕️ physical health
😴 sleep & rest
🥑 diet & hydration
👮🏼 safety
💞 social connection
💰 money & work

These topics, however, go beyond the scope of this article.

If you’re interested in learning more about these foundational areas, please contact me directly & I will do my best to guide you towards articles/books/podcasts/videos that might be helpful in your situation.

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B. I also deliberately omit the topic of creating routine & integrating these wellbeing practices into your lifestyle.

What works for me & my lifestyle, might be the exact opposite of what you need.

If you need guidance on this topic, I recommend the work of James Clear & his book Atomic Habits

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C. I am not a healthcare professional, and this is not medical advice.

Some of these tools are really powerful, and when used improperly can lead to serious consequences.

It's always recommended to consult with a healthcare professional before trying any new activity that is intended to improve mental health.