Why I Run a Full-Court Press on Myself

This is a post about how to beat depression (and/or anxiety, addiction, and ADHD). But first, story time.

[The following is drawn from the first chapter of Malcolm Gladwell’s excellent book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.]

Vivek Ranadivé was perhaps the least likely person to lead a junior basketball team to the national championships. When he agreed to coach his 12-year-old daughter’s team, Redwood City, Ranadivé had never even played basketball. Furthermore, his team was composed mostly of Silicon Valley nerds – a group of girls who were more interested in science than sports, many of whom had also never played basketball. They weren’t much for shooting or passing or dribbling, and they weren’t particularly tall.

Yet, Redwood City won almost all of their games. And they didn’t just win – they dominated their opponents, sometimes going up twenty to zero before the other team could even begin to figure out how to respond. One time, only four of their players showed up, and they lost, but only by three points. At nationals, they won their first two games and only lost the third because of a profoundly biased referee who called four times as many fouls on them as on the other team.

So how did they do it? How did this group of underdogs become so successful?

Ranadivé is from Mumbai, where he grew up watching soccer, not basketball. In soccer, players fight for every inch. If you have control of the ball, your opponents will be contesting that control for the entire length of the field. So when Ranadivé saw his first basketball game, he was stunned, as Gladwell describes: “Team A would score and then immediately retreat to its own end of the court. Team B would pass the ball in from the sidelines and dribble it into Team A’s end, where Team A was patiently waiting. Then the process would reverse itself.”

“A regulation basketball court is ninety-four feet long. Most of the time, a team would defend only about twenty-four feet of that, conceding the other seventy feet. Occasionally teams played a full-court press – that is, they contested their opponent’s attempt to advance the ball [the entire way] up the court. But they did it for only a few minutes at a time. It was as if there were a kind of conspiracy in the basketball world about the way the game ought to be played, Ranadivé thought, and that conspiracy had the effect of widening the gap between good teams and weak teams. Good teams, after all, had players who were tall and could dribble and shoot well; they could crisply execute their carefully prepared plays in their opponent’s end.”

Ranadivé decided that his weak team’s best hope was to break the norm. They “would play a real full-court press – every game, all the time.” Instead of retreating to their end after each turnover, they “defended all ninety-four feet of the basketball court.”

Their opponents were routinely unprepared for it, and they would frequently give up control of the ball on their own end of the court, just seconds after they’d been granted control of it. Redwood City, then, would get the ball right next to their opponents’ basket. This meant they could score most of their points in lay-ups, so it didn’t matter that they were no good at shooting long-range shots. The full-court press defies conventional sports wisdom by showing that the best offense is sometimes a really good defense.

Running a full-court press is exhausting, of course, because it means you’re running the whole game, so they trained like a soccer team, running all the time to make sure they were fit enough to keep up the press for an entire game. The team embraced this hard work, and it paid off enormously. “The whole Redwood City philosophy was based on a willingness to try harder than anyone else.” This strategy “supplants ability with effort.”¹

Running a Full-Court Press on Yourself

So what’s the point of this story? Brian Johnson, as usual, hit the nail on the head. In his summary of David and Goliath, he points out that we can run a full-court press on ourselves. And Brian chooses to do so, in part, because of a family history of alcoholism and depression.

In other words, we should work really hard to keep ourselves in optimal physical and mental health. And if we’re underdogs – if we’re predisposed to challenges like depression, anxiety, addiction, or ADHD – then we really need to run a full-court press on ourselves.

Just as the standard way of playing basketball gives a greater advantage to teams with more talent, the standard modern way of living gives a greater advantage to people who are not genetically predisposed to such challenges. If you won the genetic lottery and have no predispositions to things like depression, anxiety, addiction, or ADHD, good for you. You can probably thrive without many of the habits I find to be essential. But if you are like me – if you didn’t win that genetic lottery – then you need a strategy to level the playing field. That strategy is the full-court press.

My Full-Court Press

If you don’t like the basketball term, feel free to call it “the do-everything strategy” because that’s basically what it is. With that in mind, here’s a run-down of my personal full-court press.

Please know, however, that I’m a pretty extreme outlier in terms of my dedication to this stuff. And also please know that I didn’t adopt all these practices overnight; I built this lifestyle up over half a decade, one major habit at a time.

Nutrition:

• I eat a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds to get the fiber and micronutrients I need.
• I mostly avoid processed foods, fried foods, fast food, and trans-fat.
• I mostly avoid sugar because it’s bad for your brain.
• I eat flax, hemp, and chia seeds, along with wild salmon to get Omega-3 fatty acids, and I mostly avoid foods that have high levels of Omega-6 fatty acids.
• I take probiotics, salmon oil pills, and high-quality, bioavailable vitamins and minerals.
• I eat a slow-carb diet that’s designed to prevent insulin spikes and provide a steady supply of energy for my body and brain.

Exercise:

• I get at least some exercise almost every day because it’s so good for the brain.
• I rotate between legs, abs, and arms, and alternate between cardio and strength training.
• I find opportunities to move throughout the day.
• I go for walks.

Nature:

• I live near a big park and visit it whenever I can, even when it’s cold and rainy.
• I routinely go for hikes in the mountains during the summer and go skiing during the winter.
• I take the time to notice and savor the beauty of nature that’s on display all the time, whether that’s the leaves on a tree, a goofy squirrel, or some wispy clouds passing by the moon.

Sleep:

• I make sleep a priority because it’s so important for the brain.
• In the evening, I dim the lights, play chill music, and stretch to unwind before bed.
• I try to avoid screentime near bedtime, but if I’m on a computer at night, I use f.lux and wear blue-light blocking glasses.
• I try to avoid eating within four hours of bedtime to optimize my glymphatic cycle.
• I use a black-out curtain to improve the quality of my sleep.
• I tape my mouth shut at night to ensure that I breathe through my nose.

Mindfulness

• I don’t use alcohol or other drugs.
• I do a loving-kindness meditation each morning.
• Then I do a 16-minute breathing meditation.
• I take microbreaks.
• I strive to practice everyday mindfulness.
• I read books about Buddhism and mindfulness.

Wisdom

• I have a habit of taking in some piece of wisdom each day, either through reading, listening to a podcast, or consuming something from Brian Johnson.
• I write about the good ideas I’m learning and about the things I’m working on improving. For most people, this would be done through journaling; for me, it’s done through blogging.

Gratitude

• I keep a gratitude journal.
• I occasionally write thank-you letters to people who have been a big help to me.
• I try to remember that every day is a bonus day.

Generosity

• I have an automatic monthly donation set up for Partners in Health.
• I have a smaller automatic donation set up for CrashCourse through Patreon.
• I follow a rule that says, whenever I buy myself something I don’t need, I give the cost of that item to charity.

Focus

• I keep my phone in airplane mode most of the day, including the hours before and after sleep.
• I don’t check the news, email, my phone, or social media until I’ve completed my morning routine.
• The only social media I have is Facebook. I don’t allow Facebook to save my log-in information, and it’s not saved as a favorite place or bookmark, so it’s more difficult to use impulsively. I’ve unfollowed everyone except my family, so my newsfeed is not a bottomless pit of distraction.
• I try to keep my email inbox as empty as possible by archiving everything that doesn’t need to be there.

Productivity

• I rely on reminders rather than memory.
• I have a three-layer to-do list system that, combined with Google Calendar, helps me keep all my tasks organized and out of my head.
• I use calendar chains to help facilitate habit formation.

Home Environment

• I try to keep my home and workspace tidy.
• I have houseplants.
• I have art that I like on the walls.
• I post reminders to myself of good ideas via signs, sticky notes, and a whiteboard.

Meaningful Work

• I find meaning in the work that I do.
• I aim for the intersections of the Ikigai diagram.
• I regularly put in deep work sessions on creative, long-term projects.
• I engage in relentless learning in order to stay sharp and expand my repertoire of ideas.

Social Connections

• I strive to spend time with friends and family.
• I regularly stay in touch with friends and family who don’t live nearby via phone and video chat.
• I embrace the possibility of new friendships when I meet new people.
• I facilitate those new friendships by remembering people’s names and extending invitations to them.

Fun

• I engage in sports I love: skiing, hiking, and rock climbing.
• I watch some form of comedy most days.
• I play board games.
• I do jigsaw puzzles.
• I listen to short stories via Levar Burton Reads and Podcastle.

Whew.

There are two notable things missing from that list: therapy and medication. If I were in a worse place emotionally, I would be going to therapy and possibly taking medication. If you’re seriously struggling with depression, anxiety, or ADHD, those treatment options are appropriate to consider. But therapy and medication are rarely enough, so I would also be doing more than that. I would also be running a full-court press.

Another omission that might be a good fit for some, particularly those trying to overcome addiction, is a support group, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. When I first got sober, I found that such groups were not a good fit for me, but I did find great benefit from enlisting the support of my friends and family.

No Silver Bullets

Will eating vegetables and Omega-3’s cure your depression? No. None of the things on this list will. But doing all of them probably will. Or, at least, if you do many of these things on a regular basis, you’ll almost certainly spend less time feeling depressed, and your bouts of depression will be shorter and less severe.

A key take-away from my full-court press is that there is no one thing that’s keeping me happy. There is no magic pill or silver bullet that will cure you of your problems. There are no short-cuts. There are just a great many things you can do that, when aggregated and compounded, make you far more likely to experience sustained mental health.

Psychological Immunity

Tal Ben-Shahar likened this to a “psychological immune system.”² Just as there are many things we can do to strengthen our immune system in order to fortify our bodies against disease, there are many things we can do to fortify our minds against psychological difficulties.

Even if you do everything right, you may still get sick from time to time. But maintaining a strong baseline of health gives you the best chance of recovering quickly. Similarly, if you run a full-court press on yourself, you can still fall into depression when a series of unlucky or upsetting events coincide, or when something really bad happens, but the baseline of strength you’ve built up will protect you from spiraling down and down and down into a pit of despair.

Furthermore, the tools I use to imperfectly immunize myself from depression are also great tools for getting out of depression, so it’s a good idea to practice them consistently when you’re feeling good. Which reminds me of something James Clear wrote in a recent newsletter:

“The fact that you go to the gym even though you don’t ‘need’ to… is why you don’t need to. The fact that you save when you could spend… is why you have money to spend. Your habits create your strength.”

Why I Need It

There are many reasons why I need to run a full-court press on myself. It seems that I’m genetically predisposed to depression, anxiety, addiction, and ADHD. I’ve also suffered about a dozen concussions in my life, and concussions are a risk factor for these sorts of psychological problems.

Admittedly, I have superbly healthy parents, and I had a very privileged upbringing, so my need is not nearly as great as some people’s.

But whatever the background causes, I’m definitely prone to emotional struggles, compulsive behavior, and making poor choices. I long struggled with procrastination, focus, and anxiety. I’ve suffered several bouts of serious depression in my life. And I spent over ten years as an addict.

Before I started running a full-court press on myself, I mostly got by okay. But I was vulnerable to downward spirals that left me wallowing in despair. And rarely felt like I was thriving. Today, I’m much more resilient, and there’s a steady, upward trend in my life. Because of the full-court press strategy, this underdog is flourishing.

Chess vs. Checkers

In The End of Alzheimer’s, Dale Bredesen, MD, makes a compelling case that the best way to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s disease is through a holistic, multi-pronged approach³ – a full-court press. More simplistic approaches, he argues, are doomed to fail:

“For centuries, we humans typically died from acute infections such as bacterial pneumonia, and the great biomedical success of the twentieth century was to develop antibiotics that treat them and public health policies that prevent them. As a result, most of us now die from chronic, complex illnesses such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegenerative disorders. Unfortunately, we tried to solve the problem of chronic illness in the same way we solved the problem of acute illness: with a single pill, monotherapy. This is like using your checkers strategy in a chess match.”³

Depression, anxiety, addiction, and ADHD are not acute issues that call out for simple, monotherapies. They are complex, chronic issues that call out for a dynamic, multifaceted approach. In other words, they call out for a full-court press.

Furthermore, things like depression, anxiety, addiction, and ADHD are often viewed as permanent traits, features of the lives of unlucky people that can never be resolved. This can lead to fatalistic attitudes, passivity, and inaction. And that’s a shame. While the underlying propensity for such issues will never go away, the symptoms and associated behaviors can go away. The full-court press is my way of proactively addressing these issues rather than being a passive victim of my genetic predispositions.

It’s Okay to Be Weird

Okay, let’s get back to Vivek Ranadivé and his basketball underdogs because there’s another part of this story that’s important to know.

The coaches and fans of Redwood City’s opponents, losing as badly as they were, often got very upset with Ranadivé for using the full-court press. They argued that it was wrong, or unfair, or not really basketball. One coach even tried to fight Ranadivé.¹ When you run a full-court press on yourself, no one gets mad at you or tries to beat you up, but people do sometimes look at you funny.

And they sometimes feel judged and get defensive. When you’re out at a pub, and your companions are drinking beer and eating burgers while you’re drinking water and eating a salad, they might mistakenly see your choices as a judgment of their choices. You might have to explain that you’re just taking care of you, not criticizing them.

Or, on day two of a bachelor party weekend, while everyone else is nursing their hangover, and you disappear for half an hour to meditate, your friends might think you’re weird. But that’s okay. I encourage you to embrace being weird because, if you’re an underdog, that’s your best chance of success.

¹ Gladwell, Malcolm. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants. Back Bay Books, 2015.

² Ben-Shahar, Tal. Psychology 1504: Positive Psychology. Harvard Open Course, 2009.

³ Bredesen, Dale, MD. The End of Alzheimer’s: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline. Avery, 2017.