It's a false dichotomy to conflate optimization culture with romantic deception and a lack of integrity. There exists a positive correlation between improving sleep, health, mood + wellness and emotional well-being. "Healthy sleep repairs adaptive processing, functional brain activity, integrity of the medial prefrontal cortex-amygdala connections, and thus improves the capacity to regulate emotions as well as an individuals' well-being."
I'd argue that people who are "emotionally well" are more likely to have high compassion, empathy and integrity. When you feel better, it's easier to be kinder to other people. The angriest and cruelest amongst us are those who are dealing with the most internal pain and sadness.
My source of truth is my personal experience. I am a 39 year old man who has learned alot from Huberman. I didn't start to care about "optimization" until my 30s which was when I began actively noticing a decline in how I felt and sought to fight against the effects of time. The effects I noticed included heightened correlation between what I ate/drank + how I felt, lowered ability to recover from a night out, much lower energy after a night of poor sleep, low sex drive, lower physical fitness level and poorer cognitive capabilities. The reality is that everyone slowly loses various aspects of vitality around this age and many of those who choose to adopt "optimization" behavior are merely trying to feel as good as they had when they previously benefited from youthfulness. "Youth is wasted on the young" blah blah blah. A side benefit of sleeping better and feeling better has absolutely been an increase in empathy, compassion and integrity. Perhaps it is a coincidence but I felt compelled to provide my experiential evidence to the contrary of your position here.
Another way to see "the optimized" is as normal people who are adopting the necessary behaviors required to continue to feel good as they age. Taken to an extreme, these people are those who love life, sex, connection and their vitality so much that they are fighting like hell to hang on to them. Given the abundance of sexual energy and human curiosity that is evident in your writing, I predict you may fight to hang onto your vitality as well :)
we are not computers! we are humans with ever changing needs!!! thank you for writing about this!
It's a false dichotomy to conflate optimization culture with romantic deception and a lack of integrity. There exists a positive correlation between improving sleep, health, mood + wellness and emotional well-being. "Healthy sleep repairs adaptive processing, functional brain activity, integrity of the medial prefrontal cortex-amygdala connections, and thus improves the capacity to regulate emotions as well as an individuals' well-being."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7181893/#:~:text=Healthy%20sleep%20repairs%20adaptive%20processing%2C%20functional%20brain%20activity%2C%20integrity%20of,an%20individuals'%20well%2Dbeing.
I'd argue that people who are "emotionally well" are more likely to have high compassion, empathy and integrity. When you feel better, it's easier to be kinder to other people. The angriest and cruelest amongst us are those who are dealing with the most internal pain and sadness.
My source of truth is my personal experience. I am a 39 year old man who has learned alot from Huberman. I didn't start to care about "optimization" until my 30s which was when I began actively noticing a decline in how I felt and sought to fight against the effects of time. The effects I noticed included heightened correlation between what I ate/drank + how I felt, lowered ability to recover from a night out, much lower energy after a night of poor sleep, low sex drive, lower physical fitness level and poorer cognitive capabilities. The reality is that everyone slowly loses various aspects of vitality around this age and many of those who choose to adopt "optimization" behavior are merely trying to feel as good as they had when they previously benefited from youthfulness. "Youth is wasted on the young" blah blah blah. A side benefit of sleeping better and feeling better has absolutely been an increase in empathy, compassion and integrity. Perhaps it is a coincidence but I felt compelled to provide my experiential evidence to the contrary of your position here.
Another way to see "the optimized" is as normal people who are adopting the necessary behaviors required to continue to feel good as they age. Taken to an extreme, these people are those who love life, sex, connection and their vitality so much that they are fighting like hell to hang on to them. Given the abundance of sexual energy and human curiosity that is evident in your writing, I predict you may fight to hang onto your vitality as well :)
Respectfully,
J