Ask HN: What are some non-essential things/habits? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are some non-essential things/habits?

22 pointsmiguelrochefort12 comments

Recently, I've been trying to simplify my life and realized that a lot of things we take for granted and consider essential possibly aren't.

- Eating carbs: The ketogenic diet showed me that carbs aren't essential and can even be harmful.

- Eating plants: The "zero carb" community showed me that plants aren't necessary for health, and that a person can thrive on just water and beef.

- Traveling with big luggages: The "one bag" community showed me that you can travel the world with just a carry-on or small backpack.

- Cutlery: You can eat almost anything with your hands, and there are even benefits to it.

- 8 hours of sleep: The polyphasic sleep schedule showed me that it's possible to sleep as little as 2 hours a day and have just as much energy.

- Cooking: Soylent showed me that cooking or eating out isn't necessary.

- Eating multiple meals a day: Intermittent fasting showed me that you can eat just one meal a day without feeling hungry or lacking energy.

- Lots of clothes: You can wear the same thing every day, or make multiple outfits with very few clothes (capsule wardrobe). You can wear merino wool items multiple days in a row. You can wash synthetic underwear daily in the shower.

- Shaving cream: You can shave comfortably with just soap and water.

- Paper tissues: A handkerchief is just as good.

- A bed: I've learned that sleeping on the floor can be comfortable and even beneficial.

- A big house: The "tiny house" movement showed me that it's possible to live comfortably in a 100 square feet house.

I could go on, but you get the idea. I will try to post a more exhaustive list in the comments later.

Now, before you dismiss this exercise as being ridiculous or harmful, please keep in mind that my goal is not to prescribe a lifestyle but to make people think.

I know that some claims (including the ones above) will be controversial, unproven, or even false. I encourage people to still share them, if only for the value of the debunking that will surely follow.

'Modern' soaps, shampoos and deodorants - they're mainly chemicals and most often than not contain Parabens that are definitely not good for you [1]

Barber/Salons - Since the last year, with the help of a trimmer, 3 sizes of scissors and a mirror, I have learned to cut and trim my own hair and beard. There is a pretty steep learning curve to begin with, with some embarrassing results, but once I was past that, it became ridiculously easy.

Toothpaste - Brush twice a day, sure. But, you don't need as much toothpaste as advertising tries to convince you. Again, over the last year, I've reduce the amount of toothpaste I use to 1/8th of what it used to be and I haven't noticed a decline in dental quality or my breath.

There are many more that come to mind - reading the newspaper (it's an archaic habit and only adds further cognitive load in a world where we are saturated with news), hot water for baths, a cot to sleep on, online shopping.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraben

edit: added the reference for Parabens

Why not start with an obvious one:

- a car: Do you really need one or does it just feel convenient?

A bit of a stretch (and not really possible yet as of now): What about computer / mobile device hardware? Right now we need those to get work done but do we really actually need to own that stuff and lug it around with us? After all, it's about the function a laptop computer provides (i.e. providing you with the hardware and software tools to do software development), not about the device itself.

Nanocomputing hasn't progressed enough yet to provide us with a ubiquitous computing resources but why not treat computing resources as a utility that's available in any house or hotel? You just log in and have your personal VMs ready at whatever hardware unit you're sitting at right now.

This would be quite revolutionary in my opinion.

I worry about a list that has "not eating plants" and "don't need shaving foam". One may (note the caveat) lead to ill heath and death, the other to a beard..

I don't agree on the plants but I haven't been using shaving foam for years and it works very well. In addition to that there's this brilliantly simply life hack that will save you a lot of money on new razor blades: http://www.wisebread.com/want-to-keep-your-dispoable-razor-b...

Before I used that trick I had to use a new blade every 2-3 weeks or so. Now I get by with the same blade for at least several months.

> The "zero carb" community showed me that plants aren't necessary for health

Can you provide any long term studies that support this claim? From all I read about longevity studies, they seem to point in the other direction: high carb, mostly whole plants.

I know that low carb seems to be the popular way of shedding weight fast these days, but I don't see any evidence that they are more efficient than other restrictive diets, like raw vegan, potato diet, rice diet, etc.

Meat-only diets haven't been well-studied. I mostly rely on anecdotal evidence.

Keeping grudges: Let grudges go - they are pointless and eat up a lot of your time and attention.

> 8 hours of sleep: The polyphasic sleep schedule showed me that it's possible to sleep as little as 2 hours a day and have just as much energy.

Have you tried it out yourself? Could you point me to good resources that helped you get into this? In particular, I wonder how such little sleep would affect my cognitive abilities and physical performance, do you know anything about that?

I have not tried it myself.

I would recommend you start with a simple biphasic sleep schedule (4.5 hours, 1.5 hours).

Money - you can be very happy with less than you think.

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