I’ve boiled being a healthy veteran down to a few key things that are “no-fail missions”. After talking with the world’s best experts on fitness and health, over the last four years, on The Hard To Kill Podcast, this is what I’ve been able to create.
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These missions are crucial to your long-term health and longevity and are fully backed by all the best science on the planet. At the end of this chapter, I’ll attach a simple weekly training and habit plan you can use and abuse for the rest of your life. Stay tuned for my new book, Harden The F*ck Up, hitting bookstores in November of 2024.
The big picture is that you need to be H.A.R.D. to be healthy and in harmony with your true natural state. H.A.R.D. stands for:
This includes a massive component of finding out who you truly are. Happiness isn’t a pursuit but a state that arises out of satisfaction with one’s self and actions. If you’re living in shame, dealing with a victim mentality and ruminating over issues from your service, it’s going to be next to impossible, regardless of how many pharmaceuticals you take, to be “happy”. If a victim mentality has taken hold of you, you need to listen to global expert, Mark England, and his coaching process that helps you create a new story and give you your life back.
It’s becoming increasingly evident that if you’ve “tried everything” to sort out your mental state, psychedelics such as ayahuasca seem to be a very outside-the-box solution to getting over your PTSD. Listen to the conversations with CAF veteran Ryan Carey about his healing journey and how CAF veteran Toby Miller went from consuming 26 psych meds to none after his psychedelic experience.
And lastly, make sure to hang out with your friends. If you don’t have any, like most North American men, then get social. We’re building an app for that but you can’t go wrong with heading to a veteran social event or going down to the U.S. and participating in an Irreverent Warriors silkies march.
This is where you need to unleash your inner warrior. It never goes away. On the contrary, going from a state of wartime readiness where you were a lion on the savannah to a cuddly house cat at home, is very damaging to the soul. Aggressiveness, for men, is not about smashing a fist into another dude’s face for stepping on your shoe, it’s about taking action and being a leader.
You need a physically aggressive outlet to express your true self, in my opinion. The research is clear that a discipline like Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a very effective way for veterans to embrace their aggressiveness while building strong relationships with other warriors on the mats.
Building confidence around fighting makes you a very confident person both physically and psychologically. Incorporating this into your weekly routine will yield massive long-term benefits.
I love Jordan Peterson’s quote that embodies this very well:
“A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has that under voluntary control.”
Being ready requires a sense of awareness. You don’t know what you don’t know. How do you go from someone being unaware of the looming threats and issues that can blindside you? Read, listen, watch and learn about your environment and surroundings.
Therefore read a minimum of 10 pages a day of anything that’s not on the internet. Actual books. The long-term effect of consistently reading is the creation of an always-appreciating asset that no one or government can ever take away or devalue. Knowledge.
This also includes making sure your body is ready to absorb any major stress. Two of the best ways to do that is through cold exposure and breathing exercises. Cold water has been a therapy used since the days of ancient Greece to alleviate the body's stress and dramatically improve mood. Dopamine levels post, post-cold plunge, can rise almost 250%. Start by hitting yourself with cold water for 15 seconds at the end of your shower.
Lastly, breathwork is an ancient healing technique to reduce stress. Us Army types used “box breathing” to calm ourselves in a gunfight and this is no different. Breathing helps bring our prefrontal cortex online and can allow us to enter into a meditative state. Try a Wim Hof breathing session and see how much better your day is.