Because each book contains a very long experience or accumulating of knowledge from the writer or expert in the particular thing and is written structurally and systematically.
Unlike some videos, lectures, and podcasts that may have a loss of information because of limitations of time, focus, and preparations of the teachers.
Brain logs
Ideas, Thoughts or anything that appears instantly from my mind
- reading multiple subjects in a day
- I found that I can focus on one thing ultimately not more than 2 hours; exceeding the limit will be a waste of time and will produce nothing or even cause me to procrastinate.
- Changing to other activities after doing it for 2 hours will keep me able to fully focus and fresh on the next activity.
- The brain is like a muscle. You can't work on the same muscle continuously all day without its performance dropping in a few hours. But if you switch to work that loads on different muscles throughout the day, you will be able to work all day without dropping in performance. The brain is the same in that it contains multiple particular regions that are responsible for a particular work, changing activity throughout the day will hugely benefit in maintaining productivity.
- Scheduling multiple studies every day will be quite troublesome with a traditional fixed-style timetable. The solution is to do a retrospective timetable, which is much easier and more flexible.
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I found that reading under a flickering light environment can cause eye fatigue and deteriorate my outcome so much(decrease in half eg. from 20 pages to 10 pages per day!).
Flickering light comes from an artificial light source that uses electricity to produce light such as a fluorescent lamp, LED lamp, or even some type of display screen such as OLED, cheap IPS, etc. However, the flickering frequency is usually faster than the brain can notice but when your eye has to focus under such a light it has to work tiredly to adjust the lens to keep up focusing under that environment, causing eye fatigue and ruining the productivity in half.
However, not all of them produce flickering light, you can look at the labels which usually are noted with no flickering light, eye comfort light, etc. Moreover, you can detect it yourself easily with your smartphone camera.
- I found that I can detect light flickering by using pro mode(not normal mode) in the smartphone camera by setting the shutter speed to as fast as it allows; for my phone, it is 1/4000.
For some display screens, especially laptop and smartphone displays, you can search for its information before buying at notebookcheck.net this site produces a lot of accurate information about the specifications of many laptops & smartphones which also includes the details of display flickering.
- However, I also found that the display flickering at a very high frequency of more than 10000Hz (eg. my MacBook Pro is also flickering at 14880Hz) has no difference in productivity (and can't be detected with my smartphone) when compared to a laptop with no flickering display.
- The flickering of the display is usually caused by the dimming technology chosen to produce the display. The cheaper will just use the method called PWM which will simply alternate between on and off of the backlight screen in high frequency to trick the brain when the user dims the screen (the more dimming - the slower alternating - the more the eyes fatigue). The more expensive will use DC dimming which will decrease the screen brightness by decreasing the voltage power which will cause real dimming of screen brightness and much less eye fatigue.
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I found that the normal reading method which is just passing the eyes through the text in a book has some disadvantages which are...
- sometimes my eyes are too lazy to move, especially in the morning, they just stare still at the book which makes me unconsciously waste a lot of time, no further reading at that time. It is the nature of eye movement when there is no object to follow, they usually stay still, or just go back and forth in the same area.
- Most books, especially not textbooks, usually contain 60-80% of unimportant content which might be just an introduction or repeated description that has no effect on the information. Spending most time reading that content doesn't provide worth benefit.
I found that using the pointer(finger, pen, etc) as eye movement guidance when reading is the solution to those problems.
- it forces my eye to move effectively and prevents staying still or reading in the same area(back and forth).
- it can pass through unimportant content(like skimming), just know it but don't waste time to understand it.
However, people usually have questions about the joyfulness and loss of information from using this speed-up method of reading.
- For joyfulness, this method may not be able to provide that, so it may not be suitable for a novel book that is usually read in every detail for enjoyment and relaxation. This method may be more suitable for general knowledge books.
- This method may help to pass through unimportant content, but the important content still needs the same time spent on understanding(slow down reading on important content), so there is no loss of information, even when reading textbooks.
Conclusion: this method can help guide the eye to move more effectively, and pass through unimportant content(skimminglike); although it can't increase understanding speed(still needs time spent on understanding), which in general makes reading faster and much more effective.
For further information
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- using social media not more than 30 minutes per day has benefits, but using more than that will result in detrimental effects https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-a-steady-diet-of-social-media-unhealthy-2018122115600
- This is also interesting. It is about how your smartphone can make you less smart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLD6chdFjA0
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I found that when I start to learn new things it takes some time to get used to them. Even for the thing that I had studied but paused for a while, if I return to studying it, it also takes time to restart.
The concept of maintaining brain plasticity is to maintain various skills that you need in your life by repeatedly doing it, so your skill won't become worsen.
There are so many skills such as logic, memory, creativity, art, music, language, physical movement, hand-precise control, etc. However you may not need all of them, just choose to maintain a few of them that will improve your life/occupation. Also, sometimes you may not know what that skill is called, which does not matter, just make a list of those activities, books, or subjects you want. For example:
- As I want to be a programmer and investor, I choose logic, creativity, and language skills.
- However, I just simply list the exact things I want to do including
- reading financial books: financial market fundamentals, investment, and technical analysis.
- practicing programming: read programming, practice programming.
- studying mathematics and physics.
- language: English grammar, read novel.
- news: read the financial news in Reuters, and read crypto news.
However, the real problem is how I can do such many of them repeatedly without forgetting some of them.
For the solution, the tool that helps you repeat those activities is called 'Retrospective Revision Timetables' created by Ali Abdaal, you have to create the timetable which contains the first column as the list of activities you want to do and the other columns as the time spending on each activity in each day like this:
activities | time spending - comment (each column per day) | |||||||
meditation | 30min - quite blur | 30min - good very calm | ||||||
reading financial | 2hr - good | 2 hrs - good and fun | ||||||
practicing programming | 1hr - so messy | 1 hr quite better | ||||||
studying mathematics | 2hr - easy | 1hr - quite tired | ||||||
studying physics | 2hr - fantastic | 1hr - fun | ||||||
Reuters and crypto news | 1hr - reading is faster | 1hr - skimming reading | ||||||
English grammar | 1hr - quite boring | 1hr - scramble reading | ||||||
English Novels | 1hr - moderate | 1hr - so relax |
The advantage of this kind of table is the very high flexibility. You don't need to fix the time and worry about an interruption or what to do next in the day. You can spend time longer if you are deeply diving into the high-focus stage without worrying about the fixed time of the upcoming activity. Also, If you skip some activity, you can do it more in the next day. With this table, you don't need to be messy in trying to spread all activity equally in a week.
Then, enjoy your flexible life with more various improvements in brain plasticity.
note: for convenience, I suggest you create the table on Google Spreadsheet(this link is my template)
Thanks for this video which introduced me to this technique.
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https://www.psypost.org/caffeine-exacerbates-brain.../
มีการทดลอง ดื่มกาแฟ ขณะอดนอน(วันละ 5 ชม) ทำให้ปริมาตรสมองส่วน Grey matter ลดลงได้ (แต่จะกลับมาดีขึ้น หากหยุดดื่มกาแฟ หรือกลับมานอนให้นานขึ้น)
- ในขณะที่ คนอดนอน แต่ไม่ได้ดื่มกาแฟ ปริมาตรสมองจะเพิ่มขึ้น(สมองมีการปรับตัวเพื่อชดเชยกับภาวะผิดปกติ)
Caffeine ในกาแฟ อาจไม่ได้ดีสำหรับทุกคน?
- Caffeine จะไม่ดีนัก สำหรับคนที่มี adenosine receptor ในสมองน้อย(คนประเภทที่ดื่มกาแฟ ตอนบ่าย ก็จะนอนไม่หลับทั้งคืน)
- แต่จะเกิดผลเสียน้อย ในคนที่มี adenosine receptor ในสมองมาก(คนประเภทที่ดื่มกาแฟ ได้ทั้งวัน แต่ยังนอนหลับได้เป็นปกติ)
*ทั้งนี้กาแฟ มีประโยชน์ตรงที่ หากเป็นกาแฟบดใหม่(ไม่ใช่กาแฟสำเร็จรูป) จะมีสารต้านอนุมูลอิสระสูงมาก(รสชาติเปรี้ยวในกาแฟ) และอาจมากกว่าชาเขียว 2 เท่า https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/jf802418j
research: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-61421-8
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- The technique for writing and speaking English or any foreign language is you have to think in English, not in your native language(not translating in your mind from your language to English).
- It is like some kind of algorithm that can produce that language directly from your brain which is not the same algorithm in each language including your native language. It is like small different processors in your brain that are suitable for producing each language individually. If you keep using the same processor for every language it will struggle because the algorithm can't run well on that processor.
- It is also like you have to change to another personality to notify the brain to change to the suitable language processor.
- However, those particular processors also need practicing, just like language bio microprocessors in your brain that have to be trained separately.
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- There are 2 types of investment: trading and investing
Investing
- I don't have much but very limited savings, so I have very little capital for investment(the money that I can lose without any effect on my life). And if I use more capital, it will invade my savings money and hugely increase the risk of my life. So the investment may not be suitable for me this time(you much have so much wealth that the money you spend investing to make a huge profit seems little to you).
- However, there is another investing method that has less risk, called DCA. Because it will spread out the purchase, so the time of the market doesn't have much effect on the total average price. This method is much safer for low capital like me. Also, because of less risk, I can put more capital into it.
- But, because I have limited capital(I am unemployed at this time), I will do my DCA within the limited time, just until the big economic event occurs. If it is not going as I planned, I will sell all of them with less risk.
- Another method is to wait and buy at a good price, then hold until the planned big economic event comes out. But this method has more risk if your purchased price is not good enough. So I don't recommend this.
- However, there is another investing method that has less risk, called DCA. Because it will spread out the purchase, so the time of the market doesn't have much effect on the total average price. This method is much safer for low capital like me. Also, because of less risk, I can put more capital into it.
- conclusion: for transfer or investing with large capital, only use the DCA technique within a limited time.
Trading
- Another method is trading. It requires more work and needs to follow the news to keep up with the market breath.
- The information you have is the most important thing in trading. The more you read, gain, or research the news, information, and fundamental details, the better you can trade.
- I used to keep staring at charts and hoping there would be a signal for trade in technical analysis, but it didn't work. I found that the more I stare at a chart, the more loss will occur.
- The more I read and gain information about the things I trade, the more opportunities I get in trade without looking at the chart at all(I've very little time at charts and just look at them only when I want to enter a trade.)
- There are a lot of markets: Forex, Stock, Crypto. You may not need to trade all markets, just trade the market that you have a good source of information.
- Forex: Reuters, Bloomberg, Central Bank announcement & policy
- Crypto: coinmarketcap(has separated news for each crypto),theblock.co, coindesk, cointelegraph, white paper
- Stock: News about the company from reliable sources(eg. Reuters, Bloomberg)
- Again! Know your edge. You don't need to trade the market that you're not good at, because you will lose your profit at them.
- The information you have is the most important thing in trading. The more you read, gain, or research the news, information, and fundamental details, the better you can trade.
- conclusion: speculate only when there are clues with proper risk limits. Spend time on reading and gaining information, do not spend time on charts (it is a waste of time).
- ***** Technical analysis *****
- The concept of technical analysis is its trend-following nature and supply-demand analysis with market actions, you should look at the trend with a bird-eyed view and wide time horizon.
- For example, if the trend is downtrend and there are a lot of strong bearish candlesticks, even though the price moved in range and has already broken the old down trendline, it is still a good chance to sell because the trend is down(trend following), and many strong bearish candlesticks meant that supply is much more than demand(supply and demand analysis).
- The concept of technical analysis is its trend-following nature and supply-demand analysis with market actions, you should look at the trend with a bird-eyed view and wide time horizon.
- Time on a clock also matters
- I would love to enter the trade in asia day time and just wait for the price to run in US day time
- The trade-entering technique: market order / stop market order / limit order
- I don't have any technique for entering, I just enter at the market price. But the step before, I have to calculate the loss and if only I can bear that amount of loss that may occur, I will trade. The loss that I can accept will never be more than 1% of my money.
- stop market order is also my favorite one because it provides flexibility in entering a trade when price action goes as planned(breakout)
- However, there may be some times that the price triggers the order but comes back to trigger stop loss(false breakout), so don't think trading breakout will allow using a larger risk, always use proper risk.
- stop market order is also my favorite one because it provides flexibility in entering a trade when price action goes as planned(breakout)
- I don't have any technique for entering, I just enter at the market price. But the step before, I have to calculate the loss and if only I can bear that amount of loss that may occur, I will trade. The loss that I can accept will never be more than 1% of my money.
- The best trading strategy
- Shouldn't trade much frequently and letting the market run the profit with the trend is the best strategy. Always use proper risk in each trade, and gradually(not hurriedly) increase position size when the earlier trade was right. When you trade it means that you've put your money at risk of uncertainty in the market, the more frequently you trade, the more risk you are exposed to.
- There are just 2 steps: Charting and planning the trade in the large time frame(month, week, day, 4h, 1h) then waiting to enter the trade in a 1-5min time frame
- Risk management
- Because of so much volatility, should I adjust the stop loss?
- Because the commission fee(have to be paid instantly at the opening of the position) related to the profit ratio in a 1-minute timeframe is so high, it is more sensible to leave the position open as long as possible(to close in the larger timeframe). Thus, if I've placed the order, I won't adjust the stop loss in the later but, instead, keep it either indefinitely or until the stop loss is triggered.
- the commission fee is just like buying a ticket to play a roller coaster, what is the matter that you don't take a ride or even cancel it before it finishes?
- Because the commission fee(have to be paid instantly at the opening of the position) related to the profit ratio in a 1-minute timeframe is so high, it is more sensible to leave the position open as long as possible(to close in the larger timeframe). Thus, if I've placed the order, I won't adjust the stop loss in the later but, instead, keep it either indefinitely or until the stop loss is triggered.
- How large a position size I should use which will affect the fee you cost?
- depend on how much stop loss is required i.e. if the stop loss is little, you can use a larger position.
- the fee is calculated by position size x 0.001, i.e. position size open is 1000$ the commission fee is 1$.
- normally, the fee per trade shouldn't cost more than half of the risk limit per trade(eg. if the risk limit/trade is 0.5%, the fee shouldn't be more than 0.25%), because if you use more than that the stop loss will be very tight or you are risking more than the limit.
- Separate between the trading platform and chart monitoring platform makes my trading much better in conforming to my plan without unintentional trading .
- when you use the same trading platform to watch the chart, you will usually be aroused by bias from the number of profitability, loss, the fluctuation of price, or even the narrow time horizon that the trading platform provides. All of them will cause you to unintentionally open or exit the position hurriedly hurdled which will ruin the risk management
- Instead, if you separate the trading platform from the chart monitoring platform, when you look at the chart you will look for a plan, not money, which will make you trade with much more systematically, well-planned, and less risk.
- Because of so much volatility, should I adjust the stop loss?
- Dow theory application technique: Run trend and Reversal identification
- note that all of these dow theory principle must be used with trendline. Trendline break is the first criteria, then dow theory applied.
- Runtrend
- I use the dow theory to hold the position for a long time as long as it is still conformed to the dow theory which are higher high, higher low in an uptrend and lower low, lower high in a downtrend.
- Reversal
- when dow theory is not followed it may be a sign of a changing of trend(reversal). For example, if the prior trend is a downtrend which produces LL, LH of price in the chart, then it doesn't go further but breaks the trend line and produces HH and HL which is a character of uptrend in dow theory, it will be a sign of trend reversal.
For Forex
- Read Reuters as much as you can, analyze, and find the inevitable condition that will make more profit and less risk than any bet with tiring uncertain prediction.
- don't bet on the news(because it is usually priced in), but read and analyze the information and trade if there is the character of continuing or long-lasting consequence.
For crypto
- Holding crypto is just like holding share equities of the business you love.
- Reading as much as you can in what you are trading is the best strategy for survival!!
- Because crypto is usually slow-moving, you must know the factors that will influence in long-term such as Fed money policies(interest rate), the upgrade of the system, etc.
- The most proper strategy is investing with DCA, because there is not much frequency of important news that affects the price.
- It can be short-term traded when you have good reliable news but it is not often.
- But the factors in the short term also have an influence specifically for the particular crypto such as news, trends in the present time, etc.
- For the technique in short-term trading, usually in a bear market, search for coins that didn't change in 24 hours(+/- not more than 1%) because those can outperform the bear market, and then search for news of them individually in coinmarketcap.com and trade them. However, for those coins that are bullish(+ > 1% when the markets are bearish), this method may not always work because they may have already been priced in and run out of demand.
For stock
- use a week time frame
- trade only, no investing because the upside is less than crypto, trade with leverage will provide more profit.
- Also, there are a lot of reliable news resources that are good for trading
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(Sorry, for my inevitable mistake in the language, I'm not a native. Feel free to correct me.)
I have an idea that combining alternate-day fasting with HIIT may help the body burn carbohydrates and enter ketosis faster.
The main concept of fasting is that it makes your body burn the reserved energy stored in your body which will burn the carbohydrates(glycogen in the liver and muscles) first until it's depleted, and then the fat which produces ketone body. The main benefit is that the ketone body can act as the cell signal which increases the longevity of cells in the DNA level(anti-aging), improves the brain cell plasticity(by signaling the neuron to release BDNF), decreases inflammation(faster healing), and improves immunity(prevent cancer and less sickness). The process of producing ketone body from fat burning is called Ketosis.
However, fasting in humans has a flaw. It takes much time to completely burn Carbs and gradually enter ketosis which needs more than 24 hours for the real intense benefits to occur after fasting(it needs 24 hours for anti-aging and 48 hours for plenty of BDNF in the brain). The one good solution is to eat only a ketogenic diet which is no carb eating but only protein and fat, resulting in the body using only fat as its main energy and staying in ketosis all the time. However, the Ketogenic diet is not always convenient or available to everyone. Thus, I have another idea which is to eat normal foods and use exercise to increase Carbs burning to enter ketosis faster.
I found that HIIT(High-intensity interval training) is an exercise that is very effective in burning calories even in the resting time after exercise. Also, HIIT itself can boost BDNF 4-5 folds of normal exercise even in exercising for only 5 minutes. And with its lesser-time usage, I think it is very suitable for combining with fasting.
The following are the ways I've done HIIT with alternate-day fasting
- Having 6-7 meals in the feeding day. Make sure that it is equal to the meals for 2 days and one HIIT exercise.
- I don't fix the time limit for fasting(which may be around 12-16 hours). It is just like having a meal for every 2 hours in a feeding day.
- Don't worry about eating too many carbs because the body has limited storage of carbs(only stored in the liver and muscles) and the excess will be changed to fat(which can be unlimitedly stored under the skin).
- However, the fewer carbs you eat, the easier and faster for the body to enter ketosis, and the more benefit you get.
- I found that limiting the feeding period to 12 hours is much more favorable than 16 hours because 16 hours of feeding means eating even before bedtime which will cause a tendency to sleep more late or decrease in sleep quality and poorer health instead (I think 16 hour feeding is able to do but shouldn't be often.)
- On the morning of the fasting day, I will do HIIT exercise(don't forget to warm up first with slow running for 3 mins) by alternating between splinting(fast and hard running) 100 meters and slow running 100 meters within 5 minutes.
- the concept of HIIT is an intense cardio exercise but not a strength exercise which means that it requires the same weight but a lot more cadences to hugely increase oxygen usage.
- The technique of fast running is to run with short steps (no need to take longer steps which will load more weight on joints and be more prone to injury) and focus on hugely increasing cadence(more frequent short steps), pushing as much as you can before your body needs to take a huge breath.
- the real benefit of this type of exercise occurs when pushing yourself so hard enough that the body needs to pause and take a lot of huge breaths. The breaths have to be so hard that every word you want to say is separated by the huge breath which is a sign of less Oxygen in your blood(reaching VO2 max). The less oxygen in the bloodstream, the more BDNF will be released, and the more benefits you get.
- However, you don't need to push yourself over your limit, just as hard as you can. Just do it in 5 minutes for a few huge breaths is enough, the goal is only to accelerate the burning of glycogen(Carb.) in the body.
- After exercise, don't forget to drink some electrolyte water(1.5-2 teaspoons of salt, no sugar and make sure to spread evenly throughout the day) to replenish the loss caused by exercise and fasting. Also, don't forget to stretch the muscles after exercise.
- normally, people need daily salt intake not to exceed 1/2-1 tsp but while fasting and exercising you will lose electrolytes more by the water that you drink which will bring sodium out in urine, and sweat from exercise.
- If the body doesn't get enough electrolytes, the blood pressure will drop(hypotension), and you will feel weak and dizzy.
- I found that taking 1 teaspoon of salt immediately after exercise prevents me from dizziness or feeling weak.
- Another method, only when there is no salt available eg. going outside, is drinking no more than 500ml of water in the day. However, after exercise or when coming back home, there is still a crucial need to immediately replenish the electrolytes and plenty of water.
- Physical activity during fasting: It is very easy to become cold when fasting because the body doesn't get heat from the digestion of food as usual, even exercising in the morning can't help this, so it is crucial to stay active by going for a walk every hour to make the body warmer.
- the concept of HIIT is an intense cardio exercise but not a strength exercise which means that it requires the same weight but a lot more cadences to hugely increase oxygen usage.
Don't worry about muscle loss during fasting. There is an experiment that Fasting without body movement(sedative lifestyle) causes muscle loss instead of fat burning. But fasting with exercise or enough physical movement in daily life will cause very little muscle loss, in contrast, it sometimes even improves muscle strength and faster healing because of the anti-inflammatory effect of fasting.
- Also, I've tried doing HIIT on the feeding day, but no exercise on fasting resulting in weaker muscles, though there was enough replenishment of nutrients after exercise in the feeding day, especially plenty of proteins which implied that exercise on fasting day may be better.
P.S. There is research that doing HIIT alone has a lot of benefits for the body(release BDNF 4-5 fold). But I am curious about the duration of the effect may not be much long eg. 30 minutes to a few hours after exercise. Thus, combining HIIT with fasting can accelerate and boost the effect to be longer, richer, and more effective.