Note: This article is an excerpt from the book "Unstoppable: A 90-Day Plan to Biohack Your Mind and Body for Success" by Ben Angel.
After 15 years of teaching self-help and writing three books about it, however, everything I taught others failed to help me. It didn't matter whether my food was healthy or how much I practiced or read.
Everything I experienced was just a temporary burst of motivation that quickly lost effect, and worse, I lost the most important thing, which was my sense of self.
I found myself wondering why some people benefit from self-help while others do not, and why we change each other's lives while leaving others to suffer alone. Why don't we take depression seriously? If someone breaks their arm, we understand why it hurts, but if someone is depressed, we assume they are weak; we misdiagnose excuses, procrastination, and depression.
We think they are causes, not symptoms, and we suppose they are the result of the negative attitude of the individual. My doctors tried to convince me of all of this when they did not know the cause of my problem. They couldn’t be more wrong. The truth is that just because the source of pain is invisible, that does not mean that the pain is not there.
Everything I've taught about self-help over the years reinforces the false belief that if a person is depressed, anxious, or lacks motivation, they only have to change their mindset. That's necessary, but to succeed in real life, our mind and body must work properly together; they are two sides of the same coin.
When we look at high-performing people, we only look at one side of the coin, which is psychology, while ignoring the biochemistry that underpins that high-performing mindset.
We are expected to put in all of the necessary effort to achieve by the prevailing culture of working hard till we are fatigued. However, the issue is that daily high psychological effort cannot be sustained without having a physiologic impact as well.
Therefore, we must carefully consider the situation and pose the following question: What occurs when a person has an idiopathic disease such as dietary deficiencies, hormonal shifts, digestive issues, drug side effects, infections, or toxins? According to current research, this person will lose motivation, become depressed, and feel exhausted, but we misdiagnose these symptoms and assume that they are negative behaviors because they resemble psychological disorders.
We will always return to our natural biochemical state. If this state is usually mental and physical exhaustion, it does not matter how much you try to change your mindset to get out of it because you will always return to it unless you eliminate its causes.
Still, you must first know what those causes are, and you can use self-help as much as you want; you may improve temporarily, but it is not a cure.
They have previously convinced us that we need to be inspired and think positively to feel motivated, but studies have shown that chronic inflammation negatively affects motivation because it lowers dopamine levels in the brain. Chronic inflammation caused by chronic stress has serious negative effects on the brain's ability to focus and innovate.
In a survey of 25,000 individuals, we found that only 6% of people reach peak performance. This indicates that they have the mental clarity, energy, and cognitive abilities to successfully process psychological work. On the other hand, 53% of participants said they suffer from blurry thinking, fatigue, repeated negative thoughts, procrastination, and self-doubt, making it almost impossible to retain the benefit of psychotherapy.
Imagine that you’re trying to motivate yourself when you feel very stressed, that you’re trying to continue despite feeling constantly tired, relying on the strength of determination, or that you're trying to convince yourself that you are fine when you’re suffering with every step you take. It's like attempting to operate a car out of fuel; no matter how hard you try, it won't start until you fill it up. This holds true for us as well; although our surroundings have changed, our mentality has not, and it is about time we did.
The truth is that pursuing your goals is like walking until you reach a crossroads. While you need to turn right to reach them, your primitive mind will force you to turn left when you are exposed to toxins, infections, digestive problems, food allergies, the side effects of drugs, or others.
This takes place so that you can rest and heal since you don't have the energy to accomplish your goals; you just have enough to fight the physical ailment that drains you. Your brain enters self-preservation mode, giving priority to vital bodily functions instead of your goals.
You will find yourself in pain because of the difference between the person you are and the person you can be. However, until you remove the underlying causes, your primitive brain will continue to force you to rest your body because it does not have the energy to turn right, the clarity, the motivation, or the purpose. Hence, you feel like two different people in a permanent battle against yourself, leaving you emotionally and physically exhausted, as was my situation completely.
I am tired of those who claim that there is only one solution to this complex problem, tell people to be strong when they need help identifying the cause of their problem, and ask others to stop making excuses. It is time to find a new way based on neuroscience, psychology, and biology, to look everywhere for a solution, and to help everyone.
That is why, after suffering from mental fatigue, depression, and anxiety, I used the meager stock of energy I had and took a 90-day journey in search of a way to bring me back to health and to discover the obstacles to it. I relied on science, not assumptions, and best of all, I finally came up with an answer to the question of why self-help is effective for some of us but not others. It is time for people to know so that we can put an end to the inner struggle that many live in.
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