Random Thoughts #2 — Normality Traps
Recently I have been reading Matthew Walker’s <Why We Sleep>, which is a really interesting and informative book to read about the importance of sleep by itself. During Chapter 7, Walker writes about people’s inability to recognise how sleep deprived they truly are, i.e., people usually under-estimate the severity of their lack of sleep. Then he goes on with
‘With chronic sleep restriction over months or years, an individual will actually acclimate to their impaired performance, lower alertness, and reduced energy levels. That low-level exhaustion becomes their accepted norm, or baseline.’
This is sadly true, not only for sleep-deprived people, but quite common in daily life. Before I adopted a ketogenic lifestyle, I was living on carbs (raised in Beijing means rice and noodles) and deeply engraved with the belief that carbohydrates are essential for health, and fats are going to kill me by clogging my arteries. That was only (the lighter) part of the problem. The other more serious and perhaps sad issue was that I accepted how I felt everyday and thought that was normal. The sleepiness after every carb-heavy meal, the dependence on caffeine, the constant cravings of sugary foods, and the lack of mental clarity were all considered normal and this was how life was supposed to be.
It is only after my tough transition into a ketogetic diet, among other things, that I realise the opposite, that nothing I felt was normal. The freedom from constant cravings allows for more time for other areas of interests. No caffeine addiction leads to better sleep at nights. Additionally, my mental clarity and focus are significantly improved. And the bonus, is that I lost a bit over 30 pounds. But for me, the most important takeaway from this experience is the courage and importance to question normality. What is publicly accepted does not make it right and we should always be mindful of those normality traps in life. The difficulty is that those normality traps usually precisely cloud people’s ability to recognise the fact that they are in those traps, like those sleep-deprived people failing to realise the degree of lack of sleep.
The ECB’s dovish announcement reaffirms my view that the low rate environment is to stay for the foreseeable future. It remains to be seen whether Jerome Powell is going to succumb to Trump’s public and political pressure to cut rates. One of the issues with rates being low for longer is that the new generation born after the Global Financial Crisis will regard it as normal. This will likely change their mindset and lifestyle, leading to behaviors of over-spending and low savings. What is more concerning is their inability to even understand and cope with a higher-rate environment, assuming one day it will come. Kids raised in a germ-free environment usually do not fare well once they get out.
Obese mothers during pregnancy give their children higher likelihood of developing all kinds of chronic diseases, at earlier than normal stages during their lives. The higher circulating insulin level of the mom, among other things, affect the fetus in the genetic level for the worse. If not corrected, the offsprings of the child will have even greater health risks.
Hopefully, the financial system and society are not on a similar path.
