Whomever took an algorithms class is familiar with the Knapsack problem: given a knapsack of limited space, and a set of things with different weight and value, pick the set of things that fits maximizing the total value.
I just realized that taking care of your health is the same thing. The things are what you can do (e.g., diet, sleep, exercise, stretching, yoga) and all have a cost (e.g., time, money) and a (health) value. The knapsack is your life, where you have a limited amount of time, resources, tollerance, memory, patience, etc, to execute things.
The problem is even more interesting because the cost and value of things depends on the individual. Exercising more may have a bigger impact on some vs. changing their diet, but that’s not true for everybody. The cost also changes, for example, it may be easier to fit an hour of yoga in the middle of the day while working from home vs. changing sleep habits.
The most greedy algorithm to the knapsack problem suggests to sort the item using value/cost
and start filling the sack in that order.
In a world where everybody tries to convince us that you can do anything in 5 minutes per day (e.g., learn a new language, have great abs, meditate, eat better, stretch, etc) I wonder what the optimal solution is.