Unit-Testing Your Health
You wouldn’t refactor some misbehaving code without
running a few unit tests first, and you shouldn’t try to refactor your
health without testing, either.
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Do you lose your breath after climbing a single flight of stairs?
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Do you regularly sit for more than one hour without getting up?
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In the last year, have you experienced back, neck,
shoulder, or wrist pain that interfered with your ability to do your
job?
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In the last week, have your eyes become dry, red, irritated, or difficult to focus after looking at your computer screen?
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Have you eaten until you were uncomfortably full more than once in the last month?
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Have you been exposed to direct sunlight for less than 10 minutes today?
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Have you noticed an increase in the number of cavities you’ve developed in the last five years?
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Is it uncomfortable for you to bend over and tie your shoes?
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Has your pants size increased significantly in the last five years?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, there
is a good chance your well-being is in danger—even if you think you’re
in pretty good shape. That’s because each of these questions is related
to risk factors associated with several diseases and health conditions.
Living longer and feeling better are great
reasons to be healthy, but many people are not sufficiently motivated
by these factors because they take a long time to pay off.
The Mind-Body Connection
The last decade of science has revealed remarkable
insights about the relationship between the brain and other parts of
the body. We’ve learned that exercise stimulates the production of
proteins that strengthen neurochemical connections in our brain tissue.
It also increases the brain’s oxygen and glucose levels, which can
improve our cognitive abilities.
Individual laboratory experiments have shown that subjects learn vocabulary words 20 percent faster, memorize strings of letters more accurately, and shift their thinking between two different concepts more rapidly after a single bout of exercise.
Other studies have shown that regular exercise can improve
problem-solving skills, fluid intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and
memory.
The evidence supporting the mind-body connection has
become so convincing that it’s actually changing our understanding of
how human beings evolved. Anthropologists have found that animal
species with higher endurance capacities—such as rats, dogs, and
humans—also have larger brain volumes compared to their body sizes.
This research, coupled with the evidence that shows exercise promotes
the growth of brain tissue, has led to a very recent hypothesis that
the human brain “evolved due to selection acting on features unrelated
to cognitive performance.” In other words, running after prey may be responsible for our superior brains.
An Iterative Approach to Health
Chad’s moment in Harajuku is an inspiring story, but
it’s the least important part of his transformation. The year of
dedication and determination that followed his epiphany was far more
critical to his health. In that year, he learned what it takes to be
successful.
“The magic is having a system,” Chad says. Chad
realized that his success hinged on his ability to stick to a schedule
and trust in the scientific data that backs it up. He began to view
healthy food as medicine that could eventually save his life. “Pretty
quickly, it got kind of easy,” he remembers.
Having a system or a process is crucial to getting
things done. In software, we often use an agile method to guide our
development efforts. Agile processes are characterized by an iterative
and incremental approach to development, which allows us to adapt to
changing requirements. The method you use to stay healthy shouldn’t be
any different.
We’ll start with
two-week intervals, but like with any agile method, you’ll be allowed
to change that as needed. At the end of each iteration you’ll do a
retrospective to assess your progress..
To achieve these goals you’ll need some kind of
structure within your iterations. For that, we’ll use a checklist of
action items that you’ll be asked to carry out every day (see Figure 3,
Checklist of daily action items).
Let’s begin with the first one: the Healthy Stand-Up.
Every morning, just as with Scrum or some agile process, you’ll have a
quick planning meeting with yourself (or with some friends if you can).
During this stand-up meeting, you’ll ask yourself three questions:
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What did I do yesterday to improve my health?
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What will I do today to improve my health?
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Is there anything blocking me from staying healthy?
The following figure shows the big picture. You can
think of the outer loop being driven by goals and the inner loop being
driven by the daily checklist.
As you continue reading, you’ll be asked to
try new activities and learn new techniques. But more importantly,
you’ll be asked to break bad habits. Habits are tough to change, but by
understanding how the brain works you can make intelligent decisions
that will help you overcome them more easily. Chad sums up his
transformation as a process of creating new patterns, and the latest
science is beginning to explain why he’s right.
