Day 393 Record Keeping
Day 362 Fixed Meditation
Day 308 Bodyweight Exercise (2 pushups)
Day 235 Writing (58 words)
Day 408 Eating
Day 43 Dynamic Meditation = 71 (1 hour)
Great sleep, slow wakeup. Sick. Really depleted.
Possible factors: Sick, cheat day yesterday. Went biking for the first time yesterday. Slept well last night. Had beer last night. The days before had a lot of travel - errands that kept me busy. The end of last night I felt utterly drained - I fought on to do more things work-related beyond what I needed to do. Perhaps cutting off writing …or any habit….is just as important as starting it.

Dynamic Med Notes (1 hour):
x10 fidgeting
I’ve started catching fidgeting - the urge before
x4 shoulders
x4 arising caught
x1 an arising
X1 laughter

Why Do Ego-Depletion Days Happen?

There are some random days, like today, I feel utterly depleted and have to go down to basic executions of habits. Why?

Of course today I’m sick, but I’m really curious as to why in other circumstances. I think this is a really important factor - does a high output day that causes a higher willpower expenditure cause an ego depletion state the next day? Is this something that takes time? Is that ego depleted state a delayed reaction to high will expenditure? Because it certainly feels like it some days.

Some days it’s not a case of doing something difficult, and then later feeling depleted - there are days I just start out feeling utterly exhausted.

Baumeister has a daily correspondence - you do something that expends willpower, the next task is going to suffer, and regeneration occurs after ingesting glucose or sleeping. Could this be how endurance depletion works? It would explain waking up depleted - that weeks of higher endurance loads culminate in a day that starts off with depleted willpower. It also makes sense of treating endurance as a separate (but related) factor with it’s own dynamic.

It’s something I really want to pay attention to. When I’m experiencing these days I need to note any other abnormal circumstances.

Also, is there a corresponding high willpower day with great output earlier in the week? I might have in this case - I’ve been having really good writing days and meditations….again, something to keep an eye on.