Snapshot · Modern Wisdom
After his first effective TMS treatment, Tim Ferriss was unable to ejaculate for two weeks — a side effect attributed to over-suppressing the sympathetic nervous system.
Where this was said
At 1:58:00 · chapter starts 1:34:46
Tim Ferriss used accelerated TMS combined with the neuroplasticity agent D-cycloserine to drop his generalised anxiety and OCD rumination from an 8-9 out of 10 to near zero — in a single day. The effects lasted three to four months. It changed how fast he fell asleep, how easily he meditated, and how he processed the friction of daily life.
The UK had 12,183 arrests for posting on social media in 2023 — nearly double second-place Belarus — according to Freedom House statistics cited in The Times.
A stellate ganglion block involves an ultrasound-guided anaesthetic injection into a nerve bundle in the neck, essentially shaking the etch-a-sketch of your sympathetic nervous system. Chris Williamson tracked a 30% overnight increase in HRV that held for months. It's primarily used for PTSD in soldiers. You do one side, wait, then do the other — because both at once would shut down half your face and throat.
Chris Williamson tracked a 30% overnight increase in HRV after a bilateral stellate ganglion block, which held for several months before gradually declining.
After his first successful TMS treatment, Tim Ferriss couldn't ejaculate for two weeks. His doctor had never seen it before and attributed it to over-suppressing the sympathetic nervous system. The good news: anxiety gone. The bad news: something else gone too. Eventually it resolved — and now he knows to expect it as confirmation that the treatment worked.
Most non-invasive vagus nerve stimulators don't hit the nerve correctly. The nerve fibres barely reach the ear, and most ear-based devices aren't positioned in the right spot — the cymba concha. The neck-based devices are more promising and are FDA-cleared for migraines. But Setpoint Medical's implant — the size of an omega-3 capsule, inserted as an outpatient procedure — is the real frontier.
Despite predictions that AI would eliminate radiologists, the Mayo Clinic's radiology staff grew 55% after AI arrived at reading scans.
In 2025, radiology was the second-highest paid medical specialty in America, with average incomes 48% higher than a decade ago.
A study across 3 hospitals found radiologists spent only 36% of their time reading scans — the part AI can do — with the rest being human judgment.
Robert Greene notes that one in six Americans is on some form of drug to deal with depression, suggesting a deep societal disconnection from meaningful experience.
Spencer Greenberg and Jeremy Stevenson analyzed almost 500 self-improvement techniques and found they all reduce to just 12 underlying psychological drivers.
Cold exposure has good short-term alertness benefits but the evidence base for long-term health benefits is much weaker than popularly believed.
In a randomized study of 20 habit-formation techniques run on hundreds of people, almost none of the techniques produced statistically meaningful results.
People given a tiny-habit fallback option (e.g. 10 squats instead of gym) were actually MORE successful at completing the full habit, not less.
The most effective habit-formation technique was 'habit reflection' — recalling a past successful habit, writing down what helped, then applying those lessons to a new habit.
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