1. A caveat: When you stop exercising completely after doing it consistently, you can see all of the benefits that it was giving you. After this experience, I was admittedly eager to get active again. For that reason, and the fact that those exercise neural pathways still existed in my brain, it wasn’t a perfect scientific experiment. But it did put me into a familiar place—I desperately wanted to get back in shape and had the potential to do so, yet felt completely hopeless about it.
2. A Closer Look at How Vultures Lazily Circle in the Air (2019). https://www.audubon.org/news/a-closer-look-how-vultures-lazily-circle-air-1
3. Fun fact: Hang gliders are unpowered winged aircraft that launch from tow planes or the tops of mountains. They then glide down to ground level. But an expert glider can use updrafts to gain elevation, remain airborne, and even travel! The world record cross-country hang glider flight lasted 24 hours. That’s an incredible feat considering that it’s a stationary glider with no motor (and no public restroom). That’s the power of updrafts!
4. Instead of swimming butterfly into the strength of a rip current, you can swim breaststroke (the easiest stroke) or freestyle (a faster and less tiring stroke than butterfly) parallel to the shore to exit the current. With greater knowledge of how riptides (and swimming) work, you can make much better decisions if you are caught in one.
5. There’s an important caveat to this that you might be thinking about. There are times when a mindless and forced “just take action” stance is beneficial or best for a situation. The Elastic Habits strategy provides a vehicle for self-forced action called “slap contracts”—we’ll talk about those at the end of the book, and no, they don’t involve physical violence.
6. Discipline vs. Self-Discipline, what’s the difference? (2019). https://medium.com/@CMAHCA/discipline-vs-self-discipline-whats-the-difference-3371ada3151e
7. Patrick Henry’s “Liberty or Death” Speech (2019). Retrieved from https://www.history.com/news/patrick-henrys-liberty-or-death-speech-240-years-ago
8. I briefly considered naming this book “Plastic Habits,” as it has interesting connotations with brain plasticity and physics plasticity, but I feared “plastic habits” would make people think this book was about habitually littering or recycling plastic. So instead, I went with a title that makes people think of yoga pants. Ah, much better.
9. Fun fact: According to the United States Library of Congress, the deepest tree roots come from a wild fig tree in South Africa. Its root system was found to reach 400 feet deep! That’s equivalent in height to a 37-story building. Source: Tree Planting - Interesting Tree Facts - United Nations Environment Programme (2019). http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20050723150643/http://www.unep.org/documents.multilingual/default.asp?DocumentID=445&ArticleID=4852&l=en
10. In case you don’t know, a planche push-up looks like someone doing a push-up on the moon—their feet remain off the ground as they push up! And somehow, people do it with full Earthen physics in play.
11. Shugart, C. (2019). All Muscle, No Iron. T Nation. Retrieved from https://www.t-nation.com/training/all-muscle-no-iron
12. Shugart, C. ibid.
13. Mini Habits did have a small amount of vertical flexibility built-in in the form of “bonus reps,” but they were undefined and undeveloped.
14. Huang, S., Jin, L., & Zhang, Y. (2017). Step by step: Sub-goals as a source of motivation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 141, 1–15. doi: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2017.05.001
15. Man tries to kiss snake, then gets bitten (2019). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39956904
16. Sun Tzu. The Art of War (2015) (Chiron Academic Press – The Original Authoritative Edition) (pp. 40-41). Wisehouse. Kindle Edition.
17. Sun Tzu. ibid. (p. 40).
18. Sun Tzu. ibid. (p. 41).
19. Schwartz, B. The Paradox of Choice [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en
20. Group, E. (2019). EWG’s 2019 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce™. Retrieved from https://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary.php
21. Blumenthal, J., Smith, P., & Hoffman, B. (2012). Is exercise a viable treatment for depression?. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3674785/
22. Wadhwa, M., & Zhang, K. (2019). When numbers make you feel: Impact of round versus precise numbers on preventive health behaviors. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597816301972
23. The diaphragm is a muscle involved in breathing, speaking, and singing. It can be very useful to strengthen it. Cleveland Clinic has a handy guide for how to exercise your diaphragm if you’re interested.
24. I hope one day I can become a world-class skier and make this anecdote more impressive in retrospect. Look for my next book, How I Became the Triple Black Diamond Champion of the World. That probably won’t happen, because I still kind of hate snow skiing (water skiing is great fun!). Even after my braking breakthrough, one especially sharp, steep turn would still force me to pancake myself into the snow (instead of a tree). Turning would have been my next breakthrough!