Your Feelings Are Lying to You

Last summer, Kels and I took a trip that neither of us will forget. We spent 7 months as a nomadic couple, traveling the western part of the United States, exploring as many national parks as we could find. As I write this a year later, we’re in California for a week exploring a few new parks: Yosemite, Sequoia, & Kings Canyon. Being here, I quickly remember that I always dread these little hikes and adventures my wife persuades me to take.. at least at first.

Every morning, when we’re laying out our plan to drive hours away to the middle of nowhere and exert physical energy, I have this little feeling in my stomach that essentially says: I do not want to do this shit.

Then we get to the park, lace up the ole boots, and set out on our hike. And THEN... I still just want to go home. But after about 15 to 30 minutes of hiking, something happens. As the sweat beads on my forehead build, my dread is replaced with joy. My mood elevates, my stress decreases, and my mental fog lifts. And I’m reminded why we choose to spend our vacations this way.

After hiking, I always feel so grateful we went. I feel energized, creative, and connected to Kels.

Last week, we spoke a little about activation energy—the initial spark needed to catalyze a behavior—and how difficult it can be to get started. This is partly why it’s so difficult for me to get up for a hike. Humans desire the path of least resistance, so when the choice is between lying down on the couch or driving hours away to do physical activity, the former is far more appealing.

But another part of this formula explains why I hate starting a hike and why there are few feelings better than the post-hike high.

Your Feelings Lie.

Famed Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi spent his life studying what he called "Flow"—the psychological state in which we are completely engaged in life. In his work, he found that, in general, Americans find free time more difficult to enjoy than work (even if they don't particularly like their job).

Let me repeat: Americans generally enjoy going to work more than a Saturday afternoon, even when they don't like their job. This is strange, right? No way people are more fond of Excel than a daiquiri on the lake? Okay, maybe not more satisfied than being lake-side, but certainly more than how most Americans spend their weekend: horizontal on the couch binge-watching Peaky Blinders.

Work forces us to use our skills, pursue goals, collaborate with others, and generally engage our minds. But when our boss isn't driving us to stop lingering around the water cooler, we find it difficult to stir up the activation energy to get started. Inactivity simply becomes the easiest option. The problem is that we don't enjoy it nearly as much as we think we do.

Some interesting studies on teenagers show that they're 2.5x more likely to enjoy engaging in a hobby or sports than watching TV but 4x more likely to watch TV. But here's the twist: these "passive leisure" activities like watching TV or scrolling Instagram do provide a benefit in the short term. For the first fifteen to thirty minutes, we do, in fact, feel more relaxed and start to de-stress a bit. It seems like lying on the couch was the correct decision.

But then, after about thirty minutes, we start to become apathetic and lethargic. Psychologists call this "psychic entropy," and it's why if I spend a Sunday afternoon watching NFL RedZone, the only thing I have the energy to do is watch Sunday Night Football and eat buffalo chicken dip.

It works in the opposite way with "active leisure," too. For the first fifteen to thirty minutes, activities like hiking, writing, reading a book, or candle-making can feel difficult to engage in. We feel bored, restless, and challenged to stay focused. But after about thirty minutes, our brain shifts gears and locks into the activity at hand, which leaves us feeling energized, content, and less stressed.

This is the second challenge that causes most of us to quit: even when I conquer the activation energy needed to get up and go hiking, it still takes about thirty minutes to really start enjoying it.

So now we have two issues in doing things that are good for us: 1) the activation energy problem and 2) the psychic entropy problem. 

My ultimate point is that sometimes your feelings will lie to you, and we should be aware of this. Understanding these concepts can give us a little perspective to keep pushing even when we don’t want to, especially when we don’t want to.

The Japanese have a concept called “misogi” which (very) roughly translates to ‘water cleansing’ – a process where you immerse yourself in cold water or beneath a freezing waterfall to purify the mind, body, and soul.

The concept has been expanded to challenging yourself to do something ridiculous once per year, like running 100 miles, climbing a mountain in your boxer briefs, or joining the cold plunge movement.

It’s a way to physically push yourself beyond your comfort zone to expand your emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Especially in contemporary times when you can work in your pajama pants while your breakfast is delivered by somebody you don’t even have to see.

Misogi is an extreme example of creating a practice in which your purposly ignoring the messages your mind sends you in order to come out better on the other side.

I’m talking about much smaller exercises. Going on a two-hour hike and then enjoying a few beers and cheeseburgers is far different than swimming across the English channel, but the principle remains true.

Sometimes, ignoring our feelings, stepping out of our comfort zone, and developing practices where we engage in the things we find challenging or even inconvenient are beneficial to our well-being. Unsurprisingly, people who engage with obstacles have higher life satisfaction, are more resilient, have higher self-esteem, and seem to experience fewer diseases of despair.

When you’re stretching your comfort zone, you’ll hate it at first… but then, the inertia from activation energy begins to wear off, your emotional state changes, and you find yourself with a cold beer and a cheeseburger, feeling fantastic that you let your wife sway you, once again, to take that hike.