Bryan Johnson describes "Brian," an evening alter-ego that emerges between 5 pm and 10 pm to tempt him into aging behaviors like extra cookies or second servings. By naming and externalizing this voice, he created enough distance to recognize its tricks and stop following them.
Evening. Brian is a manipulative, clever, resourceful version of me. He shows up between 5 and 10pm and he has the most clever arguments on why I should do things that accelerate my aging decay and decline. He says things like just one more day of eating these cookies or just one additional serving for dinner and then we'll be done. He leads me to do things that are not in my best interest. By identifying his name, his thought processes, and his persuasions, I was able to do something I could never do before, which is actually stop stop behavior I didn't want to do. Just the trick of naming him and treating him differently enabled me to get over this big hump of stopping these self destructive behaviors.
