Are You Living or Just on Autopilot? The Aliveness Audit and the Science of Vitality

Most of us measure our health by what we can track. There is a second half to the equation that never shows up on a wearable: vitality.

Dave and Luke define what vitality is and why so many people struggle with it. You can be free of mental illness and still feel like you are going through the motions, somewhere between struggling and truly flourishing. They walk through research on languishing, mind-wandering, flow states and purpose as a predictor of longevity, break vitality into four areas (aliveness, presence, engagement and meaning), share their own stories, and close with a four-question self-audit. One small rep at a time.

Chapters

• 00:00 Health vs. Vitality. The difference between health and vitality, and why most people only train one of the two.
• 06:56 The Wandering Mind. What research on mind-wandering reveals about presence, attention and mood.
• 14:01 Finding Flow. Csikszentmihalyi’s research on the flow state, and why engagement tends to show up more at work than in leisure.
• 20:29 Purpose and Meaning. How purpose and meaning are intertwined, and how we can define purpose for our life.
• 35:54 Common Vitality Pitfalls. Where our attempts to feel more alive can go wrong, and what to keep in mind instead.