I feel like I should point out that I’m writing this in a post-run euphoria. The reason I know it’s Not Normal is that I ran on an empty stomach (…which is a mistake I’ll never make again), hated every minute while I was doing it, and now think “Hey, that wasn’t so bad.”
So, I’ve taken up running. The main reason is just to get in shape. The other big reason is complicated.
I’ve never been a particularly athletic person. My mind has always taken precedence over my body – the most I ever think about my body is about the food I put into it and how hungry I am. But when I was pregnant six years ago, my body was a marvel to me. I was regularly amazed that I had a person growing inside me! And my body knew what to do with it! And it all worked! I want to feel like that again, like my body is working as it should, that I can rely on it like it’s mine and doing what it’s supposed to.
I’ll get there, eventually. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to go drink a gallon of water.
Oh my god people, VACCINATE YOUR CHILDREN! It’s like washing your hands after going to the bathroom and brushing your teeth: good for you and the Right Thing to Do.
One of the effects of falling down the stairs and landing on my tailbone Wednesday morning is that it still hurts to sit down. This has a couple of consequences. One, I’m puttering. The house is cleaner, I’ll probably end up ironing and cleaning out closets tomorrow. I might even get productive and bake bread. I do have to make chicken stock tomorrow. Two, I’m watching less television. This makes lowering my media use so that I’m more social a little easier. (My laptop is on the bar between the kitchen and dining area of the house so I can stand.) Three, I’m getting more exercise, just by walking around more. Which is good, given that I can’t do my normal calisthenics in the morning because I just hurt too much. I’ll hopefully be able to begin again next week, albeit without the crunches and stretching.
Why does this show that I’m an adult? Because I’m finding constructive things to do instead of just moping around or going for walks.
Rule #1 to having a good day: don’t fall down the stairs first thing in the morning.
I’m going to be in pain for the next couple of days.
When I got sick about three weeks ago, I stopped exercising and I haven’t started again. I’d meant to get up this morning, but when the time came to crawl out of bed I fell back asleep. The end result? Even though about half of what I ate yesterday was fruits and vegetables (which usually help my energy levels), I feel awful.
Looking at the pictures from Nike’s new ad campaign don’t help. I’m a big slug. Who might need to go for a walk outside.
It turns out that giving up caffeine really messes with your energy levels. It’s not the less-overall energy, which I expected (and isn’t happening nearly as much as I thought it would), it’s the different times of the day that are really hard to adjust to. I’m used to being more productive in the morning, not at 2 in the afternoon. It’s weird.
I have to give up coffee. Doctor’s orders. I’m allowed one daily cup of green tea, and that’s it for the caffeine.
Stupid rosacea.
- A few years ago, I was going through a rather stressful time: planning a wedding, working full time, worrying about which part of the country (or Toronto) my then-fiance was going to get job offers from and what that meant for us. Then I gave blood, right at the same time I got a cold. Which means that I got really, really sick. I couldn’t get out of bed for about three days and I missed an entire week of work. Every day for two or three weeks after that, my stomach was so upset that I couldn’t keep anything down before about noon. I went to the doctor at least three times, and had a stomach x-ray done. They couldn’t find anything and eventually gave me some anti-anxiety medication to make me sleep more soundly. Sure enough, after a few days, I was back to normal.
So I firmly believe that anti-anxiety drugs work, is my point. They’re Good Things. So this article in the WSJ about how they might cause heart attacks bothers me. “But more than 30 commonly used drugs do carry a risk — albeit a small one — of inducing potentially dangerous reactions that can cause your heart to beat out of control or, in some cases, stop altogether, resulting in sudden death. And questions have been raised about more than 70 other medications.”
Not least, because it kind of feels like scare-mongering journalism, and the WSJ is better than that.
- Trying to be a vegetarian, but not quite succeeding (i.e. 80% of your meals don’t include meat) turns out to be just as good for you as actually being a vegetarian. No word if it’s the lack of meat or the fact that you’re probably consuming fewer calories that does the good.
- The Rage Diaries reacts to a recent Salon article about feminism vs feminity (that I’ll confess to not having read) by quoting Simone de Bouvoir: “It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity,” and pointing out, “…I can’t believe we’re still debating the dogmatic correctness of putting on lipstick or dusting the house when there’s crazy nonsense like honor killings and the Taliban’s resurgence to see to.”
According to the AP (via the NYTimes):
Chronic fatigue syndrome appears to result from something in people’s genetic makeup that reduces their ability to deal with physical and psychological stress…
This seems pretty obvious to me. Stress always makes me sleepy.
As you may or may not know, I work in a news organization, and I sit near the content producers. This means that there are TVs constantly broadcasting CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, et al around me; it also means that I’m on news websites a lot. With the Moussaoui trial and the recent release of the 911 tapes from the September 11 attacks, I’ve had my fill of reliving that day via the news media. Again.*
So when I came across this piece by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker that kind of says we need to just get over it and think about something else**, I was really happy to see it***. Hopefully, the news media will read it, and move on.
And no, I’m not going to go see United 93. No, I haven’t watched the trailer. No, I don’t plan to. Yes, I want to in a really morbid way. But I don’t want to poke at that wound again. It seems like a Bad Idea.
* This irritates my husband to no end, because it means that whenever he wants to listen to NPR or watch the news and something about it comes on, I either leave the room or turn it off. He doesn’t understand why I don’t want to be informed. I know the facts. Does that mean that I have to read the transcript? Or listen to what Guiliani had to say in his testimony? No. I don’t want the color. Thanks anyway.
** I remember reading once that someone did a study that found that depressed people generally think unhappy thoughts. Which, duh, but it’s a correlation, not a causation. What if the fact that depressed people tend to dwell on bad experiences is actually what makes them depressed? What if you concentrated on thinking about things you like? And stopped yourself from thinking about bad things? Does that make people less depressed?
*** I always personally thought the Pentagon being hit was much more disturbing than the World Trade Center, but the way that the NY attack has come to dominate the story… I mean, obviously the military doesn’t want you to think about their weaknesses, so they don’t dwell on it. And there might be something to that.
You know what? Eating more fruits and vegetables makes me happier. You think I’d learn this someday, but no. I’m continually surprised whenever I notice it.
It might be time to make some dietary changes, particularly given the level of stress I’m expecting to be under for the next few months.
This is a twenty-year old essay about how to be healthy, particularly with regards to work. I particularly like this quote:
Well, let’s be honest with ourselves. It’s fun to abuse our bodies once in a while. Who can honestly deny the seductiveness of a candy feast, a beverage binge, or an all-night work orgy? So, while we can argue that we’re doing it out of dedication to our work, we’ve got a perfect excuse for fulfilling our innermost desires. And besides, a little excess never hurt anyone, did it? And sometimes the job really does require an all-out, self-sacrificing effort.
The upshot is that you shouldn’t sacrafice your body for your work. It’s not good for you or your job in the long run. Whether or not it’s about your “personal chemistry.” How 1980’s.
