The Post-coffee Drop

Jack Close -

Hey guys, thanks so much for being the first subscribers to my newsletter. I hugely appreciate you.

🤨 Why the name?

Every newsletter is named after a day of the week. Monday Musings, 5-Bullet Friday, Sunday Snippets. I didn't want to do that.

Every morning, I get out of bed, eat my breakfast and drink my morning coffee. This is swiftly followed by a trip to the bathroom to drop the kids off. I always end up pointlessly scrolling Instagram while I'm there, rather than starting the day off productively. This newsletter is designed to fill that space. To fill the post-coffee drop.

🗓 This week

I've just finished my exam season. It's been very intense. I've been focussed on building this online community over the last few months, and ended up neglecting my medical work. This led to some intense anxiety before the exam because I wasn't fully ready for it; in both my mindset and knowledge. After 2 weeks of intense work, practice, and a lot of coffee, they're finally over and done with.

Does brain training actually work?
I've always been intrigued by brain training. In this week's video, I explore the research to see whether it actually works, and alternatives to keep the brain functioning well as we age. You can read the article here, or watch it via this link:

🔊 Resonators

Here are 3 things that resonated with me this week.

The Biggest Myth In Filmmaking
Dan Mace is a brilliant filmmaker. He tells meaningful stories through his videos and has some of the best animation on YouTube. This video has a great section explaining how a film camera works, I've never understood this and thought you guys may find it interesting.

Jay Shetty: The 3 Simple Things A Happy Life Needs
Jay Shetty takes us back to the basics of breathing in this episode. 3 breathing patterns that I remember as aligning, hyping and relaxing.

  1. When you feel stressed and need to align yourself—4 seconds in, 4 seconds out.
  2. When you want to hype yourself for a run or workout—breathe in longer than you breathe out.
  3. When you're trying to relax—breathe out longer than you breathe in.

These may seem incredibly trivial, but when I'm feeling overwhelmed or stressed, I've found these simple rules helpful to calm myself down.

Castro Podcast App
The apps I use on a daily basis haven't changed for years. I usually just cycle between YouTube, Spotify, WhatsApp and Instagram. Podcasts are now a large part of my daily routine, and now with Castro, they have their own dedicated space. It has a very simple interface that I've found much more intuitive than Spotify, I recommend giving it a try.

Quote

"If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t" — Emerson Pugh