The Art of Manliness - #62： Play it Away With Charlie Hoehn

00:00:00.000 This episode of the Art of Manly's podcast is brought to you in part by Flint and Tinder

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00:01:15.380 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Are you feeling

00:01:20.220 burnt out? Like you just feel like your job and life is just sucked just the joy out of your life.

00:01:27.620 You're not alone if you feel like that, because there's a lot of people that feel like that today

00:01:31.080 with our smartphones and computers. There's this expectation that we're supposed to be on 24 seven

00:01:37.100 with our jobs. And there's this pressure to just make more money, to get more status. And we think

00:01:44.760 that'll make us happy. But what ends up happening is we end up miserable. Well, our guest today has

00:01:48.960 written a book about his experience of workaholic induced burnout. His name is Charlie Hohen. He's

00:01:53.840 the author of Play It Away, A Workaholic's Cure for Anxiety. And we talk about Charlie's experience

00:01:58.580 with burnout and the anxiety that it caused him. And we talk about what he did to alleviate this.

00:02:04.260 And we've talked about what he found that really did the trick, what helped him overcome his burnout.

00:02:09.360 And you'll be surprised because it's good old fashioned play. So stay tuned.

00:02:13.280 All right, Charlie, welcome to the show.

00:02:16.960 Thank you, Brett. Nice to be here.

00:02:19.480 All right. So your book is Play It Away, A Workaholic's Cure for Anxiety or Burnout. Let's

00:02:25.260 talk about what led to this book, because it's an interesting story. And I know that a lot of

00:02:29.320 guys who are listening to this podcast will probably relate to your story. So how did this book come

00:02:34.900 about? Um, so the reason this book originally came about actually, because I was working on another

00:02:44.700 book, uh, on how to get a job that you actually legitimately want after college, uh, not some

00:02:53.840 dead end corporate job that you'd get through Craigslist because you're just trying to get a paycheck,

00:02:58.840 but how to actually set a solid foundation for your career. And a section of that book that I was

00:03:06.800 working on was about, uh, quitting and dealing with burnout and getting over, getting, getting

00:03:14.180 your work life balance back and overcoming crazy amounts of stress or anxiety, uh, from working

00:03:22.820 in like a startup type of scenario. And, uh, and when I showed the book to a number of my friends,

00:03:32.540 they were like, this section's great, but it doesn't belong in the book. You're just trying to

00:03:37.400 teach people how to get the job that they want. And that was my favorite material. So I decided to

00:03:42.640 make it into a book because I, uh, I, I posted on my blog, uh, an essay called how I cured my anxiety

00:03:50.820 and it ended up being one of the most popular things I ever wrote. And so there was a lot of

00:03:55.880 demand for the topic and yeah, it was, it was just basically, um, over a thousand people said they

00:04:02.560 wanted to read a book on overcoming anxiety. So I decided to just turn it into a book.

00:04:10.380 Well, cool. Tell us about your personal anxiety problem. I mean, how did you, cause I mean, you kind

00:04:14.120 of, you hit rock bottom at a point. Yeah. Yeah. And when I say like anxiety, I don't mean like

00:04:19.960 the mildly socially anxious, uh, or the slight panic you get, if you miss a deadline, I mean,

00:04:28.040 debilitating anxiety where you're having panic attacks and you feel like you're on the verge of

00:04:33.380 like breaking down and you never feel you, you feel like you're never going to be happy again.

00:04:40.200 Um, there's when my rock bottom was just, I felt constant dread all the time. I had difficulty

00:04:50.000 breathing. I had difficulty sleeping. I couldn't relax. It was physically impossible. And I felt

00:04:57.020 like I was trapped in my own personal hell all the time. I remember having a conversation with my

00:05:04.080 girlfriend and she was basically like, you aren't the guy that I met. What is wrong? And I told her,

00:05:11.940 uh, that I just felt dead inside all the time and I didn't know how to fix it. And it just wouldn't go

00:05:19.200 away. It was like, I had, I didn't have thoughts of like suicide, but I remember thinking many times,

00:05:27.320 like, I just want this to be over. Like it's, it's such a bad feeling. And to constantly feel like

00:05:35.860 you're in fight or flight mode and constantly terrified of something, uh, you know, even though,

00:05:44.440 you know, it's irrational, like people just tell you like, Oh, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter.

00:05:49.440 It's just like the, you're, you're still mentally and emotionally and physically broken in, and I

00:05:57.420 wasn't sure what was causing it. And it, it was, it was really bad. Uh, so I, I started having panic

00:06:04.860 attacks and stuff. And I was seeing a doctor or I asked the doctor to like, check me out. And she gave

00:06:10.640 me these benzos, which are a type of pill that's apparently is, uh, has the same withdrawal effects as

00:06:18.620 heroin, getting off of heroin. And so I never took those pills because I saw this, uh, the side

00:06:25.560 effects were far worse than the symptoms that they could mask basically. Like it could cause even worse

00:06:33.620 anxiety or insomnia and all this stuff. So I went on this journey, uh, of like trying to cure my anxiety

00:06:41.620 basically. And I tried everything and nothing really seemed to work for more than a

00:06:48.580 few days. And when I, when I say everything, it's just like anything that you've tried to

00:06:56.120 alleviate your stress or depression or anxiety. I tried. Yeah. So like meditation, uh, meditation,

00:07:05.820 yoga, breathing exercises, therapy, uh, like doing these therapy books. I did extended fasts. I did super

00:07:17.120 clean diets. I did intense high intensity workouts. I did prayer. I did volunteering. I, I even took a

00:07:25.500 six week course made specifically for men wanting to overcome anxiety. I did isolation chambers, uh,

00:07:33.000 or flotation tanks, like everything and, uh, supplements and drugs and all this stuff. And

00:07:39.580 stuff only seemed to work for a short period of time or alleviate my symptoms for a short period of

00:07:46.540 time or it would make things worse. And finally, once a couple key pieces fell into place, I was

00:07:53.480 back to normal within a couple of weeks and I didn't even notice my anxiety was gone. And I

00:08:01.220 legitimately just have no fear that those feelings will return. And if they do, I know how to get rid of

00:08:09.820 them. Awesome. And that's what, that's what the book's about. All right. We're going to talk a little

00:08:13.080 bit about that, what you found. Uh, but before that, let's just talk about burnout in general.

00:08:16.440 Cause you know what you, when I read your book and as you talked about that, like I've experienced

00:08:20.920 that same sort of thing as well. Like that, just that feeling of being dead inside, like you're just

00:08:24.900 so overworked. It happened to me when I was in law school and like after law school and like,

00:08:29.640 honestly, I'm still kind of recovering from it. And that's been like four or five years.

00:08:33.840 Yeah. Um, what, I mean, you're, and I know this isn't like just, uh, it isn't rare. It seems like

00:08:39.980 a lot of people are experiencing this sort of burnout. I mean, what is it? Why? I mean,

00:08:44.820 I don't think my dad, you know, really had burnout. Uh, I don't remember him being burnt out growing up.

00:08:50.240 He seemed to enjoy his job and go to work and he'd come home and grandpa the same way, but it's like,

00:08:55.100 there's a lot of, I don't know. What is it about modern work, uh, that makes people more susceptible

00:09:00.260 to burnout? I think there are a lot of things, but I think the main one is the most obvious one

00:09:04.960 is that we're, we don't escape work as easily anymore. There's no set hours. It's, it's just

00:09:11.140 around the clock. And I know so many people who lay in bed checking their cell phones up until late

00:09:19.120 hours. And not only is that preventing your brain from relaxing and just kind of shutting down and,

00:09:26.100 and it's also physically waking you back up. It's just keeping you on the whole time and it's

00:09:34.000 reducing your quality of sleep. And what happens when you sleep is your brain actually clears itself

00:09:40.660 out. It takes, it, it kind of resets. It's not that it stops working and, you know, just relaxes the

00:09:47.220 whole time while you're sleeping. It's, it's like the house cleaning for your, for your body and your

00:09:52.740 mind. And so I think people are not only just constantly connected and constantly on now,

00:09:59.880 and they feel this, an even greater sense of pressure to succeed because now everybody's stuff

00:10:05.540 out is out in the open on Facebook, which is a highlight reel. So you, you, you get up and you

00:10:12.020 check Facebook and you're like, Oh my God, everybody's life is awesome. Uh, but nobody's broadcasting

00:10:18.600 like the anxiety and the panic attacks and the depression and the sense of hopelessness that a

00:10:24.820 lot of people, which a lot of people feel as part of the human condition. And we don't, we don't

00:10:31.440 broadcast that stuff because we're ashamed of it and embarrassed and self-conscious, but we all go

00:10:35.980 through it on some level, no matter how great our lives appear, no matter how great we want other

00:10:42.700 people's to think our lives are. Um, so I think that that's, that's one part of the equation. That's,

00:10:51.020 that's a huge part that people tend to overlook because it seems so normal now. Um, but for me

00:10:56.960 personally, I know I was sitting still all day drinking four to five cups of coffee a day and just

00:11:06.220 constantly checking my email. So I was being sedentary interacting with human beings exclusively

00:11:12.860 through a screen. So I was, it's, it's like a glorified aquarium. You know, you're just constantly

00:11:19.340 looking at this piece of lit up glass and that's, that doesn't resemble anything that happens in

00:11:26.040 nature. And I was in indoors in temperature controlled rooms all day, just not moving. It's

00:11:33.100 horrible to do to your body, first of all, but it inevitably leads to you just feeling awful.

00:11:40.800 It's not like I'm the weird one who was doing this. It's like everyone around me was doing it in

00:11:46.000 Silicon Valley because everyone's a programmer. And, and I got to a point where I was taking brain pills,

00:11:52.760 these, uh, nootropics, which were, this was kind of the height of my workaholism was taking these

00:12:02.500 drugs so I could stay awake for days and keep working. Was this ProVigil? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:11.400 Yeah. And that's, it's very common. I hear amongst kind of like Silicon Valley folks,

00:12:16.840 they're taking ProVigil to get that edge. Right. And, and the thing is, is like the stakes are

00:12:22.720 legitimate, like out there. I mean, not, not in my particular case a few years ago, but like they're

00:12:31.120 for these tech startups, some of them have hundreds of millions of dollars on the line and people

00:12:37.160 complain about athletes taking steroids to get bulkier so they can hit a few more home runs and

00:12:44.800 land multimillion dollar contracts. There are, you know, little scrawny programmers running around

00:12:51.500 effectively doing the same thing to their brain so that they can program faster and get more work done.

00:12:59.400 And it's destroying their mental health and the, and a lot of them don't realize it because

00:13:05.480 everyone around them is doing it. It's quiet. You can't even tell that they're doing it pretty crazy.

00:13:11.540 Yeah. It's funny. You mentioned how, you know, a lot of us are right. They're like,

00:13:15.860 we're stuck in this aquarium in front of a computer and we're, a lot of us are in our email all day.

00:13:20.180 And what's interesting, you talk about like, we're very sedentary, but when you work in email and

00:13:24.560 you're doing like, you experience fight or flight reaction, right? But you can't do anything

00:13:28.820 to like release that, right? You just sit there and you just let, you're like stressed out. And

00:13:33.540 what's weird too, it's sort of a disconnect, but you're like, it's just email. It's just like this

00:13:37.540 mental, it's like, not, I'm not being chased by Mastodon. Why do I feel like that? And so you kind

00:13:42.820 of get down on yourselves, like, come on, get it together.

00:13:44.840 Right. Tough it out, like work through it. And yeah, I mean, it's, it feels ridiculous to be

00:13:52.600 hyper-stressed by digital information and work and stuff that in the grand scheme of things means

00:14:00.760 nothing compared to how you feel in your health. But we take it all very, very seriously.

00:14:09.240 Yeah. Okay. Here's maybe you get some insight into this. If there's some guys who are listening to

00:14:13.840 this and they're kind of fancy themselves as high achievers, are there, are there any, um, like

00:14:18.340 signs or symptoms of like pre-burnout or burnout that they should be on the lookout for? And they'd

00:14:22.980 be like, okay, I need to, I need to take a step back and reevaluate what I'm doing here.

00:14:28.580 Yeah, for sure. Uh, the, the main one is your inability to not take your work seriously. Uh, or I'm,

00:14:39.620 I'm probably getting my words confused there with a double negative, but, uh, there's, there's some

00:14:45.400 great quote, I forget who said it, but it's just like the, the signs of a pending mental breakdown

00:14:50.840 are a person's inability to like laugh at themselves or they just take their work super,

00:14:57.620 super seriously. The, let me see. I, I had a checklist actually in the book of like all the

00:15:06.160 things that indicated if you're on, on course for a breakdown that I, I legitimately wish someone

00:15:14.760 had held the mirror up to me. Uh, but at the same time, I don't know if I would have acknowledged it

00:15:21.340 because it's like, I was so unhealthy in terms of my, my work routine, but I was just like, at the

00:15:29.580 same time I was getting congratulated because I was, I was super productive and I was in all these

00:15:35.280 cool different positions doing all this cool stuff. So here's, here's the checklist. Okay.

00:15:41.720 Do you feel guilty or really anxious when you're not working, when you're taking time off and not

00:15:49.140 doing anything more? Like, do you have to check your cell phone? Uh, do you feel guilty when you're

00:15:54.420 not working? Have you stopped playing with your friends? Like having guilt free play with your

00:16:01.320 friends? Do all of your daily activities revolve around you building a more successful career?

00:16:08.340 Everything you do during the day, is it career oriented? Are you sleeping less than eight hours

00:16:14.340 per night? That's a big one. Um, are you consuming stimulants multiple times per day to hide your

00:16:21.620 exhaustion? Um, I've, I was drinking a lot of coffee. Uh, a lot of people do energy drinks. And again,

00:16:28.820 it's just like, it's, if your body is freaking out within an hour or two, every time you're taking

00:16:35.100 these stimulants, it's telling you, you need to change something and slow down. Uh, so a worthy

00:16:41.860 experiment is just to go a week without those stimulants, just replace it with water and see

00:16:47.200 how your body responds. If you're just constantly like feeling strung out, just take away the stimulant.

00:16:53.500 Um, are you sitting still and staring at screens for most of your waking hours?

00:16:59.780 Do you interact with people primarily through screens? Are you indoors all day long, depriving

00:17:05.800 yourself of fresh air and sunlight? And do you depend on alcohol or drugs to cope with social

00:17:12.480 situations outside of work? So those are the big red flags of like, are you on the path to potential

00:17:21.520 burnout? Oh yeah. Yeah. I was kind of like, I, I, uh, I am kind of in a bad shape then.

00:17:28.860 A lot of people are. I don't think it's like an uncommon thing at all. And that's the thing.

00:17:33.620 It's just like, there's, there's so few of us. There are so few people who are just like, you know,

00:17:40.640 it's a workaholic culture is kind of crazy. We ought to stop and reassess because America is like one of

00:17:47.880 the least happy countries on the planet. Also by Flint and Tinder exclusively at Huckberry's

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00:18:43.660 Yeah. And what's funny is it's just sort of creeps into your life.

00:18:46.060 Like you don't, you know, and then before you know it, it's too late. Like you don't see

00:18:49.660 it. And then you're like, oh my gosh. Okay. So, um, you tried all these things like meditation,

00:18:55.380 yoga, and you finally discovered that play, um, was one of the keys. I mean, how did you

00:19:01.300 discover that? And what is it about play that's so good for us, even as adults? Because we often

00:19:06.760 just think of play. That's what kids do. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us about play. Yeah. So, uh, I,

00:19:12.540 I had that breakthrough when I just happened to stumble upon a book called play by Stuart

00:19:19.480 Brown. I was at my friend's house and I just came across this book and I was like, huh,

00:19:24.700 that's an interesting title. And I just started reading it. And, uh, I, I read it in one sitting

00:19:30.600 and my reaction to the book was, oh my God, I'm such an idiot. Like I've felt awful for years 0.99

00:19:42.460 and I, the answer is so obvious why. And it's because I'm constantly preventing myself from

00:19:51.540 playing. I'm constantly mentally blocking myself from having guilt-free fun. Like I remember being

00:20:00.280 on, I was set up on a blind date and I was set up with this really beautiful, awesome girl.

00:20:06.600 And later on she told me, and I, and I'm like, normally, uh, I'm, I'm a pretty relaxed and carefree

00:20:16.080 guy. Who's like easy to laugh. But like at that stage of my life, she told me when she met me and

00:20:21.140 she was like, you were super intense and serious. I was like, man, that's such a drag to hear. But

00:20:28.340 like, I, I was always feeling guilty about having fun. I always felt guilty when I wasn't working

00:20:36.040 because at the time I was starting to make a lot more money. I had a few major successes under my

00:20:44.560 belt and I felt like I, my work was really important. My career was really important.

00:20:51.640 And I quit my job of working for Tim Ferriss because a bunch of like, uh, external stuff outside of work

00:21:00.360 just went awry. And I had to quit because I was, I was just like, I emotionally, I couldn't do it.

00:21:07.780 And I felt like I'd really just like, let everyone down. I was like, man, I, I, I not only burned a

00:21:16.100 bridge with like my mentor and my hero, but I, I potentially threw away everything I'd worked for.

00:21:23.100 And I needed to become like a successful CEO or a millionaire or somebody who changed the world

00:21:30.160 in order for everyone to accept that I was like, okay, again. And so in my head, I was like, I got,

00:21:36.840 I got to get back on. Like, I got to get back. Like, I got to work my way through this. And I was just

00:21:42.580 never playing. And the thing was, is like, when I started reincorporating play and back, back into my

00:21:49.260 life, like the activities that I voluntarily turned to while I was growing up, stuff like playing catch

00:21:57.520 and playing home run derby and creating arts or building things with my hands or like making music,

00:22:05.660 developing my skills, stuff that I did for fun, just for fun, no other outcome. Everything changed

00:22:12.460 because I started, I started viewing my world instead of as a prison, which is how it felt when

00:22:19.180 I was super anxious. I started viewing my world as a playground and everyone around me as potential

00:22:25.780 playmates and every moment as an opportunity to have fun rather than I need to get back to work so I

00:22:34.980 can make money and be successful. It became about how can I have fun? And so my work actually

00:22:42.280 changed back to what it was when I first started out, which was, it's a game that I would willingly

00:22:48.800 play. Like I was able to get into these great positions of working with guys like Tim Ferriss and

00:22:54.700 Tucker Max and Ramit Sethi, because to me, my career was just a game that I was setting up for myself,

00:23:03.260 that it was just opportunities I was creating for myself. Like after I got out of college, I spent a few

00:23:09.560 months just applying to jobs that I didn't want at companies I didn't want to work for because that's

00:23:16.120 what everyone else was doing. And that's what I thought you had to do. I thought you had to get a

00:23:20.780 job that you hated in order to pay the bills and it didn't work. And so I like, no one would even

00:23:28.640 respond to me. Everyone would ignore me. So I was just like, I'm just going to work for people I like

00:23:34.360 and, and propose cool projects that'll be fun. And if I get paid cool, if I don't worst case scenario,

00:23:42.540 I have something interesting to talk about. I have something in my portfolio, uh, and a,

00:23:48.200 and a fun project. So I approached it as a game and I was able to do all this cool stuff that I

00:23:53.920 actually wanted to do. But when it switched over to being about money and success and feeling guilty

00:24:00.220 for not doing enough and needing more and more and more, then everything got messed up.

00:24:07.640 And, and so I play changed everything. It was, it's not only the physical act of like getting out and

00:24:14.820 running around and having fun. It was just a way that I viewed the world. It was a way that I viewed my

00:24:21.480 work and it changed my life. And what I didn't realize is when I was super anxious, I had this nervous,

00:24:28.240 like weird, creepy energy to me that other people would detect and they would reflect it back to me.

00:24:35.240 Like, you know, have you ever seen like a person walking their dog and this, and this guy like

00:24:41.120 will walk by them and the dog will just be like, freak out. And it's because the person walking by

00:24:46.900 had some sketchy, weird energy that the dog detected. And it's like humans do that too, but I think they

00:24:54.540 do it on a subconscious more, much more subtle level. And, um, I, what I realized is like when I,

00:25:02.140 when I started playing, when I started viewing the world as a place where I can have fun again,

00:25:07.700 and every moment as an opportunity to have fun, I started playing with everybody. I started joking

00:25:14.680 around with waitresses and cashiers and, and my friends, I started, you know, we started pulling

00:25:20.400 pranks on each other and just joking around and relaxing. And it changed my world because everyone

00:25:27.360 around me started playing back with me. And all of a sudden I was surrounded by people who were

00:25:32.860 having fun again. And it, yeah, it just, it changed everything.

00:25:38.040 Yeah. You know, as you're saying, you know, telling that story about how you read Discover

00:25:41.440 Play, it reminds me, I mean, like when I, before I read your book, I, I, you know, this stuff, like,

00:25:45.120 you know that if you take things too serious and you just focus on money, like you're going to be

00:25:48.460 miserable. Right. But like, you forget it, uh, for some reason. And it reminds me like, you know,

00:25:53.440 there's been like books and movies about this same thing, right? Like the baseball player who

00:25:57.620 got into baseball cause he loved the game. And then he became this like crabby prima donna player

00:26:03.820 who was just concerned about making money. And like, he sucks. Did you read the New Yorker article 1.00

00:26:08.980 called, uh, why I quit major league baseball? No, I haven't read that. Oh, it's so good. You got to

00:26:14.020 look it up. It's about that exact thing. It's like this guy who just loved the game growing

00:26:18.380 up and he became great at it because he had so much fun doing it. And he quit because it became

00:26:24.500 about the business. It became about money and like, and it just ruined the spirit of the game

00:26:30.300 for him. And I think the people who are like the most successful at what they do, what I found when I

00:26:37.400 was doing like research for the book was, it was like the most successful and influential

00:26:45.180 entrepreneurs and artists, all of them, almost all of them view work in life as a game. Like

00:26:55.340 they play for a living. And Mark Twain has this great quote about how, like, when we talk about

00:27:02.480 the great workers of the world, we're not talking about the great workers. We're talking about the

00:27:06.940 great players of the world. I put together this like slide share on like the best quotes on why we

00:27:13.640 should play for a living. But yeah, it's just like, if you can retain that original spirit of

00:27:19.640 like why you got into the game in the first place and not be so focused on the money, I think that's

00:27:26.140 why guys like Steve jobs and Larry page, they took a annual salary of a dollar a year. It was symbolic

00:27:33.400 of like why they were in the game in the first place. They weren't there to sell out or get money.

00:27:39.080 They were there to do something that was their game. That's awesome. Okay. So I'm sure there's

00:27:45.240 guys who are listening to this like, yeah, this sounds great. I want to do this, but like, I don't

00:27:48.660 have time for play. I mean, but it sounds like you incorporated play just sort of naturally and

00:27:54.900 even to your work day. I mean, how, I mean, what do you tell guys what, what advice do you have to

00:27:59.180 offer to incorporate play into their life? There, there are a few things. So one is you should look

00:28:06.100 at play as an actually like a productivity hack. You can make the same argument about how I don't

00:28:12.900 have enough time to get a full night's sleep because I got to get back to work. Well, okay,

00:28:19.180 do that for a couple of weeks and see how well you're working. And it's the same with plays. If you

00:28:25.000 take time off to have fun and to play and do stuff that you actually enjoy, you're actually

00:28:31.980 going to work better. You're going to have a more full and rich life and you're going to be more

00:28:37.100 creative and you're going to be more passionate about what you're doing. You're going to bring

00:28:41.000 more energy into your work and your work is going to improve. And the CEO of Burton, the snowboarding

00:28:48.160 company, he actually has in his contract, this is a guy who's a hundred millionaire. He has in his

00:28:53.320 contract that he has to be on the slopes a hundred days of the year. He devotes a third of the year

00:28:59.220 to being, to playing because he's like, I can't do my job unless I'm having fun.

00:29:05.700 And this is consistent with what I found with other high, high achieving, top performing

00:29:12.800 entrepreneurs and artists is they play hard. They play really hard. One of the stories I included in

00:29:21.080 the book is about my friend, Aaron. She was a graphic designer and she was working on a client's

00:29:26.500 website. And she was like, we, my friend, Ann and I called her up and we're like, Hey, you want to

00:29:31.200 hang out? And she's, she goes, no, uh, I, I missed the deadline earlier today. I'm working on a client's

00:29:38.700 website and it's just not coming together. I have at least six more hours of work in front of me

00:29:44.700 and we could just hear the stress and the desperation in her voice. And so we went up to

00:29:50.500 her apartment and she was just like a mess. She was super stressed. And we looked at the site. It

00:29:57.460 wasn't coming together at all. And she was like, yeah, I'm just going to stay up all night until this

00:30:02.280 is done, you know? And we were like, why, why don't you take the night off? And so we kidnapped her

00:30:10.380 and we took her mini golfing. And initially she was really stressed on the ride over. She was like,

00:30:17.060 Oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing this. Like I'm going to be in so much trouble, blah, blah, blah.

00:30:21.540 And then by like the fourth hole, she was relaxed. She was laughing and we had a great time. And we

00:30:27.680 just joked around and messed around the whole time. She went back home when we dropped her off that

00:30:32.300 night. She got a full night's rest. The next morning she woke up and she texted us later that day.

00:30:37.100 And she was like, I got the, I got the client site done in an hour and a half and it was good.

00:30:42.620 And that's the thing. It's like, we, we insist that we, we constantly push ourselves to like,

00:30:47.840 keep going, keep going, get it done, grind it out, grind it out, work through it. And you actually

00:30:55.180 need time off because when you take that time off to relax your brain, it's, it's the same effect as

00:31:02.300 sleep. It's like, you're not thinking about this thing constantly. You're just having fun and you're

00:31:09.720 relaxing. And when you return to your laptop, when you return to your workstation, you actually have

00:31:15.900 a lightness and a happiness and a joy to you that you previously did not have. And so it's play,

00:31:23.460 I believe strongly is a productivity hack. It's essential to doing great work.

00:31:30.240 So think of play as an investment that, uh, pays off huge dividends.

00:31:35.620 Yeah. Even though you're technically wasting time, you're actually gaining time back.

00:31:42.360 That's awesome. Okay. Well, I mean, besides play, is there anything else that people, I mean,

00:31:47.080 what else did you, I mean, you, you talked about other things that did work for you to help

00:31:50.400 alleviate the anxiety. Is there anything that sticks out to you in particular?

00:31:53.460 Totally. Um, I mean, if people want to immediately, people who are really struggling

00:31:59.780 with anxiety, I would say, um, the first thing they ought to consider is optimizing their bedroom

00:32:07.460 for quality sleep. The key thing there, well, there are a couple of key things. One is set a time to

00:32:14.920 go to bed at the same time every night. Like you have to get into a routine. If you want to eliminate

00:32:21.180 your anxiety, every anxious person I've met has either been in denial about how little sleep

00:32:26.840 they're getting, or they're going to bed at random hours. And part of the reason for that is what we

00:32:32.600 were talking about earlier is like looking at screens past 9 PM wakes you, wakes you back up.

00:32:39.680 So if you can make the commitment to not look at your screen an hour before you get in bed and just

00:32:47.080 be done with it, like plug your cell phone charger in a different room than your bed. So you can't

00:32:51.620 even be tempted to go look at it. Uh, that's super important and make your room as dark as possible.

00:32:57.480 Get it around 68 degrees, cover up every light source, including alarm clocks and smoke detector

00:33:04.780 lights, like everything. Make it just as dark as possible. Make sleep a huge priority because that

00:33:10.260 will dramatically reduce your anxiety along with play. Like obviously play and sleep, I think are

00:33:18.440 the two biggest areas that people should focus on if they really want to reduce their anxiety.

00:33:23.780 And another thing that I would do during the day is I would take a 20 minute nap after lunch. I would

00:33:29.200 just lay on my back, like often on the floor. And I would just close my eyes and set an alarm on my

00:33:36.280 phone for 20 minutes right after lunch and just focus on breathing. Just breathe in and out, in and

00:33:43.840 out. I wouldn't try and fall asleep, but I often would. And I would always wake up feeling so much

00:33:48.640 better. And naps are amazing. Like kids take them. Other cultures take siestas and stuff like,

00:33:56.200 and naps are proven to reduce your risk of heart disease and all these, all these other things.

00:34:02.900 Like naps are great for reducing anxiety. Uh, there are a number of other things. I think, uh, a thing

00:34:09.200 that a lot of anxious people don't realize is like, um, there are certain, uh, nutrients in their body

00:34:14.840 that get rapidly depleted when they're constantly stressed for a long period of time, because for

00:34:21.500 whatever reason, the brain consumes those resources much faster if you're hyper stressed all the time.

00:34:27.320 And something I found that really helped me a lot within a week or two was when I started

00:34:36.820 supplementing with, uh, two to four servings of omega-3 fatty acids. So cod liver oil. And, uh,

00:34:45.800 I found that I was also deficient in vitamin B12. So there, those, those are two areas that, uh,

00:34:52.980 anxious people are commonly deficient in is, uh, I think it's like methylcobalamin, which is vitamin

00:34:58.800 B12 and omega-3 fatty acids. And two others are, uh, potassium and magnesium, which can be,

00:35:08.000 all of these things can be obtained through food, but for vitamin B12 or vitamin B in general, um,

00:35:15.400 your, your, your gut might not be properly absorbing those things, even if in vitamin Bs in

00:35:21.800 meat, animal products, uh, so, uh, meat, eggs, um, and you might not be absorbing that. So if that's

00:35:30.580 the case, it helps to eat a few forkfuls of sauerkraut so you can get healthy bacteria back into your gut

00:35:37.780 to help properly absorb that stuff. So, um, I think those are just a couple quick areas that people

00:35:46.500 can, if you start taking, um, omega-3, which isn't going to hurt you, I'm not a healthcare

00:35:53.520 professional by the way, so don't hold me accountable. This is just based on a ton of

00:35:58.180 research I've done on this stuff. And also from personal experience and reading about personal

00:36:03.480 experiences of others is if you start supplementing with omega-3, uh, every day for a month,

00:36:09.680 it can really dramatically reduce that in vitamin B, uh, can really calm your brain down. Um, and you

00:36:18.500 know, there's a, there's a bunch of other stuff I talk about in my book that helps. Um, but the,

00:36:23.160 but the key, the two key areas I would say that anybody can focus on more are play, like actually

00:36:30.100 having guilt-free fun with your friends while moving around outdoors rather than viewing exercise

00:36:36.840 as some evil chore, like hopping on a treadmill and being miserable for a half hour. You can just

00:36:43.020 run around outside, play Frisbee with your friends. Same thing, except you're having fun and it's social

00:36:48.220 and, and improving your sleep. So going to bed at the same time, don't look at screens late at night

00:36:53.940 and, uh, take 20 minute naps. Awesome. So yeah, get, take it, get more of what America's deprived

00:36:59.860 of sleep and play. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Well, Charlie, uh, this has been a great conversation.

00:37:04.840 Your book, uh, definitely inspired me. So I'm going to encourage my listeners to go out and check it

00:37:08.940 out. It's an awesome read. So thank you so much for your time. Yeah. Thank you. Our guest today was

00:37:13.780 Charlie Hoenn. He is the author of Play It Away, A Workaholic's Cure for Anxiety. And you can find that

00:37:18.460 on amazon.com and be sure to visit his website at charliehoenn.com. Well, that wraps up another

00:37:25.820 edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice. Make sure to check out the

00:37:30.120 art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com. And if you don't know already, we've published a

00:37:35.320 new book. It's called heading out on your own 31 life skills in 31 days. It's a book that's geared

00:37:41.140 towards young men who are about to leave the nest and head out on their own. And we cover just skills

00:37:45.700 that they're going to need to know to be well adjusted functioning adults, like how to get a

00:37:50.720 job, how to ace an interview, how to make a budget, how to iron and take care of your clothes. It's a

00:37:57.620 very comprehensive in-depth book. You can find that on amazon.com. So check it out today, heading out

00:38:02.520 on your own. And until next time, this is Brett McKay telling you to stay manly.

The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2014

#62： Play it Away With Charlie Hoehn

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