Premise #1 Chronic stress is the underlying cause of most disease and ill health
Premise #2 Most chronic stress is due to personality/psychology, the fundamental problem is lack of inner security, usually due to a lack of secure attachment during childhood
I recently came to believe that loving kindness (metta) meditation, the aim of which is to gain the ability to self-generate feelings of love, would be the best way to for a person to gain inner security, and thus remove the fundamental source of chronic stress and optimise health.
However, when I look at the long term practitioners of loving kindness meditation, there was a very striking contrast between the sexes. While all the female coaches for this type of meditation that I could find online videos of appeared very healthy and feminine-looking, the male practitioners all either looked or sounded completely castrated. Example Noah Levine, has the look of a biker (from his "troubled" past), but the voice and overall demeanour of someone whose balls shrivelled up.
This made me think about the different circumstances required for males and females to thrive, particularly with respect to their sexual health. I believe that for women, much of what Ray Peat writes about how to optimise health is probably largely on point, i.e. relaxation and reducing the stress and difficulty of life as much as possible. However for males I'm starting to think that too little stress and too much effort on increasing relaxation, comfort and security is actually detrimental to male health, and is a major driver of male anxiety and depression.
What males need to thrive both mentally and physically is rather strife, hardship, challenge, competition and above all discomfort. The way for men to reduce their anxiety and depression is not to seek to reduce to a minimum the stress in their lives, rather it is to regularly expose themselves to discomfort and challenge to become tougher and more stress-resiliant.
I think this may be why in western society we are seeing this massive trend towards women becoming more and more feminine and attractive, whereas the men are becoming increasingly feminized, it is simply because we in modern society we have largely eliminated all discomforts and hardships that used to be a part of everyday life. It is not due to oestrogen's in the water supply, it is due to emasculating/feminizing effect of excessive comfort and security.
This is why if you were to go to any part of the world where life is still tough, such as most parts of the middle east that still struggle daily with war and famine, you could pick a man at random and chances are he'd be far more masculine and healthy than 90% of the men living in modern western society.
Thoughts? I first became aware of Ray Peats work more than 7 years ago and largely due to his and Matt Stones influence, have strived to lead a life as free of stress and discomfort as possible since then, but while I was able to heal from severe hypothyroidism and anorexia due to this, I'm starting to wonder if the soft cushy problem-free life full of meditation, sleep and little exercise has been detrimental for overall.
Premise #2 Most chronic stress is due to personality/psychology, the fundamental problem is lack of inner security, usually due to a lack of secure attachment during childhood
I recently came to believe that loving kindness (metta) meditation, the aim of which is to gain the ability to self-generate feelings of love, would be the best way to for a person to gain inner security, and thus remove the fundamental source of chronic stress and optimise health.
However, when I look at the long term practitioners of loving kindness meditation, there was a very striking contrast between the sexes. While all the female coaches for this type of meditation that I could find online videos of appeared very healthy and feminine-looking, the male practitioners all either looked or sounded completely castrated. Example Noah Levine, has the look of a biker (from his "troubled" past), but the voice and overall demeanour of someone whose balls shrivelled up.
This made me think about the different circumstances required for males and females to thrive, particularly with respect to their sexual health. I believe that for women, much of what Ray Peat writes about how to optimise health is probably largely on point, i.e. relaxation and reducing the stress and difficulty of life as much as possible. However for males I'm starting to think that too little stress and too much effort on increasing relaxation, comfort and security is actually detrimental to male health, and is a major driver of male anxiety and depression.
What males need to thrive both mentally and physically is rather strife, hardship, challenge, competition and above all discomfort. The way for men to reduce their anxiety and depression is not to seek to reduce to a minimum the stress in their lives, rather it is to regularly expose themselves to discomfort and challenge to become tougher and more stress-resiliant.
I think this may be why in western society we are seeing this massive trend towards women becoming more and more feminine and attractive, whereas the men are becoming increasingly feminized, it is simply because we in modern society we have largely eliminated all discomforts and hardships that used to be a part of everyday life. It is not due to oestrogen's in the water supply, it is due to emasculating/feminizing effect of excessive comfort and security.
This is why if you were to go to any part of the world where life is still tough, such as most parts of the middle east that still struggle daily with war and famine, you could pick a man at random and chances are he'd be far more masculine and healthy than 90% of the men living in modern western society.
Thoughts? I first became aware of Ray Peats work more than 7 years ago and largely due to his and Matt Stones influence, have strived to lead a life as free of stress and discomfort as possible since then, but while I was able to heal from severe hypothyroidism and anorexia due to this, I'm starting to wonder if the soft cushy problem-free life full of meditation, sleep and little exercise has been detrimental for overall.