Man up! Be Uncomfortable! Expose Yourself …
Exposure
/ɪkˈspəʊʒə,ɛk-/
the state of having no protection from something harmful.
We all have a defense mechanism against exposure.
NOTE: I have spent several months working on this article in 2016, bits here and there, reviewing it over and over, in other words, I put a lot of effort into it. I hope you give it the time it deserves, there is a lot to read, but it will be worth it. I wrote this to help make you stronger.
How to Train Mental Toughness
Being able to expose yourself longer to uncomfortable conditions has a lot to do with your mental toughness. All these things mentioned will help build up and train your mental toughness. It’s usually the mind that gives up before the body is even near to giving up.
If you’re weak and want to get stronger, you need to expose yourself to weights heavier than you’re accustomed to, the only way to get stronger muscles is to increase the exposure and weight. If you want to be able to do more repetitions, you need to expose yourself to more repetitions. The concept of exposure applies to just about anything you can think of.
If you expose yourself longer to temperatures colder than you’re accustomed to, you will be able to feel more at ease when exposed to colder temperatures.
If you expose yourself longer to temperatures hotter than you’re accustomed to, you will be able to feel more at ease when exposed to hotter temperatures.
If you expose yourself longer to cardiovascular exercise than you’re accustomed to, you will be able to feel more at ease when exposed to intense exercise.
If you expose yourself longer to situations that require mental toughness than you’re accustomed to, you will be able to feel more at ease when exposed to tough situations. If you want to be mentally tougher, expose yourself to difficult situations.
If you expose yourself to bacteria, you will build resistance, let’s say you lived in a bubble to protect yourself from all bacteria, guess what? Your immune system would be weak, you’d be sick quicker, more often, and more severely.
Let me give you another example of how the body builds up resistance to exposure, I don’t like the topic much as my biological father killed himself with this crap, but nevertheless, it brings across my point. Heroin, expose someone to this poison and they will build up resistance against it. They will be needing more and more poison to reach that high they’re searching for.
Another great example is to do with eyesight, stop giving your eyes a workout and they get lazy, go to the optometrist and they’ll give you glasses, the problem is fixed temporarily, but the cause is not, and your eyes will become even lazier, you’ll more than likely be going from stronger to stronger prescription glasses until you focus on the cause, in my case it was sitting behind the computer too much and my eyes not getting a workout, I gave up wearing the glasses and fixed my eyesight with exercise.
Stop giving your brain a workout, stop exposing it to situations that require thinking, and pretty soon simple brain functionality won’t be like it used to be. But like anything, fix it with exposure.
Your whole being is built to build up resistance against exposure, if your skin is exposed to friction, it builds resistance by growing tougher skin, if your skin is exposed to the sun, it produces more melanin and darkens.
Hit someone who has been hit many times before, and it won’t have the same effect as hitting someone who has never been hit before, give a junkie a big dose of heroin and it won’t have the same effect as it would on someone who has never used it before.
But everything has its breaking point, for example, expose yourself too quickly or too frequently to heavier weights and your body can get injured. Step-by-step progression/exposure needs to always take place.
The opposite effect will take place if you stop exposing yourself, for example, stop providing resistance to your muscles and they will become weak, stop providing a challenge to your cardiovascular system and it will not be able to respond well to cardiovascular exercise, stop exposing yourself to heat, cower away in air-conditioned rooms and the heat will be harder to bear, dress for protection against the cold and the cold will feel even colder when not protected.
I go out on hot days and ride my bike when people say “You’re doing this in August!?”, I dress light and expose myself to the cold as much as possible when winter approaches, I keep taking cold showers, I keep sleeping without a blanket, I keep challenging my cardiovascular system, I keep putting myself in tough situations that require mental toughness, the minute I stop, I will become a pussy.
Moderation is the key! I do drink alcohol, I do understand the effects of alcohol, I feel its effects on my performance, I see its effects on my body, and I do struggle sometimes with finding the right balance and moderation for this drug. But I also believe that the right exposure to it can be beneficial to your immune system.
Behind everything said above is nutrition, the cornerstone of it all! The foundation for everything.
What I’m going to say next I know is going to make you think I’m the craziest SOB alive, that I’m a lunatic hippy, I’m ok with that, I understand how people grow up in different environments and don’t always question what the majority says. I have at some stage semi been following along with the majority, which is why I can completely relate to how you might feel and think right now. My changes have been a slow progress over many years, mainly due to questioning things, traveling, and watching all types of documentaries. Without further ado.
The Best Doctor In The World
… is YOU!
Yes, I’ll probably get some strange looks for this statement but think about it for a bit. Who knows you better than YOU? Doctors act upon the information quickly given to them in a 5-minute consult.
I am not a big believer in doctors, wait, before you judge me, I believe they’re great for broken bones, cuts, and bruises, but that’s where it generally stops.
A good doctor is an analyst, a problem solver, someone thinking outside the box and I’ve never met one. I have not been to a doctor other than for injury in many many years, I haven’t taken medicine for as long as I can remember.
I know some hardliners will come with questions about vaccination, but I don’t have answers for that. I know vaccination is a preventative measure against extreme diseases, and I believe they should almost be called something else than a disease as I think they have a different function in the world. It’s hard to provide feedback on this matter, I do have one theory, which is, that the more vaccinations we inject people with, the more extreme diseases will evolve (see video above). Evolving is the nature of everything, be met with resistance and you become stronger and change.
When you’re sick, the doctor gives you medicine, but those medicines are not the solution to the cause of the sickness, those medicines kill the sickness and your body will not go through the process of building up immunity. Most of the time, the cause is not addressed and you can only imagine what that actually does in regard to real health.
Getting stronger mentally or physically always requires being uncomfortable.
Here is some motivation to get your butt into gear and moving!
More motivation below, a bit more upbeat with lots of action. Real scenes of people I trained, my own training, and my gyms.
Pussy = Weakling
Weakling = physically weak and frail.
NB. Am I always strong, does writing this article make me Superman, do I always follow my own advice? NO, I also have my weak times, without them, there would be no strong times. If you happen to be a weakling, does that make you any less of a human, no, that’s not what I’m saying, nor the reason for writing this article. I wrote this to help make you stronger.
If you take anything away from this or agree with any of it, please like and share. If you have other opinions or thoughts on how to make this article better, I’m here to learn and have an open mind, please feel free to post your thoughts below.
- Podiatrists: several personal experiences taught me that they’re a total waste of money when they prescribe orthotics, and orthotics is all I’ve ever seen them prescribe. Orthotics make an already weak foot even weaker. I have more to say on this, but that’s for another chapter.
- Optometrists: both my son and I went in and walked out with prescription glasses, we wore them for a while, went back, needed a stronger prescription, stopped wearing them and here we are today, after exercising our eyes more we’re able to see perfectly fine.
- Chest infection: I had one for 4 to 5 weeks, I felt horrible, I felt like it would never go away, I could run to the doctor and get some antibiotics, but I didn’t, I’m still here, stronger than before.
- Behavioral problems: these days you hear more and more about kids being medicated because they have behavioral problems like for example ADHD (Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). Let’s look at the words “Attention-deficit“, the word deficit means a deficiency or failing, in my books and in most cases I believe it’s the parents failing to provide the attention their kids need, a normal kid gets hyperactive, it needs to be out to release that hyperactivity, climbing mountains, cycling, running, wrestling, working out, but instead most parents let them sit behind computers because they’re lazy themselves.
- More to come …
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Great article, the videos are awesome too!