BISTABLE HYSTERESIS

April 4th, 2026

There exists a pernicious and particularly insidious problem that I've been trying to solve for years. Many attempts at solution have yielded a variety of effects that have slowly mapped out a model, or a thesis for the system that I'm trying to interact with. The variables are numerous, the interactions are countless and the sweetspot is elusive. Recently, I discovered the term to describe the system that I've been playing with: Bistable Hysteresis.

Life has some rare delights, and coming across a word or term that perfectly describes a model that's organically arisen in the mind after many hundreds of hours of concentration is one of them. I remember it happening often as a kid, but as an adult it's far more rare. The last time this happened, I believe, was with the word iatrogenic. Unfortunately in adulthood, this rare delight is almost always going to be accomplished by technical or foreign words. Tsundoku, hyperbolic discounting, hormesis, saudade, agathokakological. Ten cent words for sure that are more likely to elicit an eyeroll from a listener or reader who doesn't know wtf you're talking about. It's unfortunate that the predominate education system has such a talent for suppressing education - that innate ability that kids have.

Now that the self-conscious preamble to discussing a stuffy conceptual term is out of the way ( Deciding on the fly here that I'm probably going to code in expandable footnotes more like embedded notes ) into Tinkered Thinking - I love footnotes and methinks building expandable footnote capability right into a composer would actually help a lot with first drafts because writers would be able to go off on tangents without the sense that they've sacrificed the main vein of the essay, as I've clearly done here, now multiple times. To be sure, a parenthetical is something that couldn't make the cut as a true sentence, and a footnote couldn't make the cut as a parenthetical and an endnote couldn't make the cut as a footnote, and what gets left on the cutting floor, well, hopefully that's just bad writing.)

Imagine you are stuck in a valley. This is a bad valley. And you want to get out. The natural tendency is to just keep rolling down the valley. This is the design of the situation. And not only that, but staying in the valley makes it deeper over time. In this situation, what do you do?

The orthogonal solution. The only way out is to turn and go up the slope. This is very difficult, particularly if you are not accustomed to traversing steep slopes. The balance required is difficult and precarious. Each step requires a lot of effort. And It's easy to take a wrong step, slip on the footing and tumble back down into the valley. The process of getting out of the valley is simultaneously very difficult and very delicate — not a combo that people generally find themselves equipped with an innate talent to handle.

Think of this in the context of a real life situation: kicking a bad habit. You have finally had enough. You are sick of cigarettes or vaping. You throw out your stash. You feel triumphantly angry. Finito. Done. Voila! Your rack up a few glorious days. Ha, this is easy! And then something annoying happens. It's not just annoying, it's a tiny inconvenience that actually derails your whole day. It's not life threatening but it pisses you off. You want relief from how you're feeling. And then that craving, that desire for that sweet sweet release, that single puff that just brushes all of life away for a few moments. The memory of that feeling fills you and now you're thinking about how far away the nearest store is. You can't concentrate on the annoying problem at hand that needs to be solved. And It's boring in comparison to the good work you had planned. The craving is now hijacking your logic. You deserve it because you had the best of intentions to get good work done, but you hit a blocker that wasn't your fault. You are being unfairly punished. You deserve something to balance the cosmic scales of justice. Just a little taste. Just one won't hurt.

That's the misstep. The combo of delicate and difficult becomes too much. That single puff sends you tumbling back down into the valley, and you dig in the depth of that valley, making it a little deeper, making the slope a little higher.

It doesn't have to be an addiction. It can be something like exercise, and getting yourself to do it consistently. A couple of days in, you feel good, you're doing it! But then one off night of sleep, or you're too sore, and suddenly the excuses start piling up. I should just do a little cardio, maybe just sit in the sauna to help maintain the habit. But you say fuck it. That night you binge on some ice cream - you deserve it. The crazy glucose spike right before bed ruins your sleep and you wake up feeling miserable. Well you won't have a good workout after such a bad sleep, so it should be another rest day. And before you know it, you're back down in the valley.

A person can spend many months, years, even decades trying to climb that slope, and each failure can be demoralizing: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. The valley metaphor also shows how a bad situation can be self-reinforcing in more than one way, it can be psychologically self-reinforcing because any attempt at change seems hopeless.

The funny thing is that a lot of skill acquisition looks like insanity. Trying to ride a bike, or a unicycle or ice skating, often requires falling over and over until finally, a different result emerges.

Now before we extend the metaphor and finish it, let's explore a different one: a train on its tracks.

We are (ideally) born with good health. And from a the perspective of a biological system, its functioning is much like a train riding along on its tracks. But as we get older, bad habits begin to have an effect. Like filing off the inner lip of a train wheel. If it degrades enough the train can slide off the tracks. Ask yourself, what's easier: to get a train off the tracks? Or, to get a train back on track? Both are pretty difficult, but surely if you had to pick one, it would be getting a train off the tracks (just go full speed on a tight turn and voila. But getting a train wreck back on track? uhh. good luck). Because of the design of the the system, the way on and the way off have totally different mechanisms. Just like climbing out of a valley and sliding down into a new valley are two different directions and methods. This is hysteresis: a system's current state depends no just on its current inputs but on its history and therefore the path to get into one state is different from the path to get out of it.

Bistable just refers to each state (assuming the system has just two states) is self reinforcing. Meaning, the longer the system is in one particular state, the harder it is to switch states. Or put in practical terms: the longer someone is unhealthy, the harder it becomes to get healthy. And the opposite is also true: Someone who has impeccable health can withstand more unhealthy slings and arrows than someone who has just entered a positive state of health.

Hormonal health is a great example of bistable hysteresis: hormonal profiles are often self-reinforcing — even the bad ones! We often have an assumption that the body drifts back towards a healthy state by default. But that's not the case. Because of bistable hysteresis, a bad hormonal profile, or hormonal health that has gone off the tracks, can self-perpetuate. Here's an example: Low Free Testosterone shifts body composition to have more adipose fat tissue, particularly visceral fat (fat around organs). This fat is not just stored energy, it's an endocrine production site, meaning it produces stuff that influences hormones. What does adipose tissue produce? Aromatase. What does aromatase do? It converts Testosterone to Estrogen... which lowers testosterone even more, which shifts the body to have even more adipose tissue, which produces more aromatase, which converts more testosterone to estrogen, which... you get the picture. It's a vicious cycle.

Sleep is also going to suffer in this situation, and good sleep is crucial for a good hormonal profile, so if a bad self-reinforcing hormonal profile is further exacerbated by bad sleep, well, it's like an Ouroboros lapping itself.

So back to our valley metaphor. Getting out of the valley isn't the only hard part. If you manage to get to the crest, you don't necessarily fall into a valley of great health. It's more like the valley is a canyon in a plateau and it doesn't take much to aimlessly wander back into the bad valley.

If you want to stay out of the bad valley, you have to dig a new valley.

This is the part of hysteresis where getting into a new state requires a different method from getting out of the old state.

It's a bitch to dig a valley, but after digging just a little bit, you're already making it difficult to get out of. This is a good thing, it's self-reinforcing in a virtuous way.

So what's useful about understanding bistable hysteresis and having a word for it? Two things: one is understanding the process of getting out of a bad valley — it's delicate, difficult and easy to backslide back to zero. The second is the psychological reality of getting out of the valley and reaching the plateau. It can feel like victory, but unfortunately it's only one half of the solution. It's like when you finally figure out how to lose weight. Maybe you get to the point where your abs are showing. You have more energy, you feel amazing, and you love the way you look. It's a victorious feeling, and along with that comes an urge to celebrate. Do you celebrate by eating a salad an hitting the gym? Or do you feel like you've earned the right to let lose a little and party? A cocktail, a late night, some fast food. Hell, you deserve it!

Paradoxically, the most appealing thing to do when you arrive at the plateau is to turn around and look at the slope you just climbed as a fun slide.

The feelings of victory induce a desire to undo that victory. But the correct way to react to the feeling of victory is to double down on the strategy that got you there: to do the work to dig a new valley, one that'll protect you from sabotaging your own gains.

What's most interesting about bistable hysteresis in human systems, particularly biological systems is how accurately it represents reality, and how at odds it is with human psychology. You are constantly working against hardwired incentives, and true success requires an understanding of an abstract process for a goal that's hard to feel. Few people seem capable of changing their behavior based solely on a conceptual understanding, but for those who can, bistable hysteresis is an excellent model. I'm starting to see it unexpected places: human relationships, business incentives and corporate structures, sycophancy and delusion and even AI psychosis.

Albert Camus once said that we must imagine Sisyphus happy. I prefer to imagine that he found the plateau.