Mental and Physical Health and Wellness Track, 2022

[viscousmemories]

I rode into the month on a wave of having just jogged 4 miles straight for the first time in my life, but I had some (not too bad, but some) leg/knee/hip pain the following day so I kept it to a walk. The following day I jogged again, and I kept doing that (jog non-stop one day, walk the next) for a couple weeks. I kept experiencing a little more pain in my knee-area each time I ran, though, so a couple weeks ago I stopped jogging and just started walking. I've been sick since about 10/20 so I haven't even walked since the Saturday before last. I'm still doing my twice-a-week pilates though, so not totally sedentary.

I've been taking a lot more liberties with my diet lately (e.g. cake and ice cream on a couple special occasions) but still practicing enough discipline to keep me hovering around the same weight, so that's a huge win. I'm still ~5 lbs away from my "goal weight", but beyond happy to be in the ballpark.

Still doing my daily reading/writing consistently.

[Miss Shelby]

This post may not be appropriate for this thread (or any to that end) but it’s personal, funny and perfectly illustrates the perils of aging.

Most here know I work in health care as a tech in a PICU. So the other day we were preparing to get a patient who was crumping on the regular floor. I began my regimen of setting up the room with supplies. It was a respiratory illness baby which requires isolation amongst other things. That tidbit will make sense momentarily.

So I make the very common physical move of bending over to stock some supply or other, and out of the blue, very involuntary and in no way shape or form with warning, I feel a stream of a small amount of diarrhea slip out. And our unit is connected to the pre/op post/op area and had I bolted to the locker room from there, I had to do it in front of a multitude of staff members and patients. The closest bathroom was occupied so I was left with no other recourse than to run straight out the front locked doors, between the triage area and the front reception area and THANK GOD the restroom was vacant. I pulled off the scrub pants, stuffed my undergarment in the disposal for feminine products and examined the back of the dark green scrub pants where I discovered a straight obvious liquid line. My choice would have been to go back the way I came , in full view of many many many people to get to the locker room. I opted to run out the side front door, sprint down to the employee entrance where FEWER folks could witness it. Ran straight to the locker room, changed into good scrub pants, and realizing I was not yet out of the woods, made it to the supply closet to retrieve a pair of party panties. Mesh panties, which more females will relate to. Mind you, doing this bare backed and aware it could strike again without warning. I went back down our ICU hall only to discover our employee restroom was still occupied. So I went into the still vacant room where we were expecting our patient and in the private bathroom in that patient room. I put the party panties on, adjusted my self and exited the patient bathroom. Our respiratory ther
apist was in there setting up her equipment. And I said I know that was creepy but I had to make emergency adjustment. I shared the story with her and we laughed. And laughed.

Younger ladies may not understand but there is a good possibility that some day they will.

I meant to make a disclaimer when I began this thread and forgot. So if it was too graphic for some, maybe a little TMI, I do apologize.

[Sock Puppet]

Ah yes, the ol' Skidmark Surprise. Been there occasionally, although (so far ) not quite as publicly.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[specious_reasons]

I used some work wellness credit to purchase Fitbit premium last year... I got the notice about the renewal, and I cancelled it.

I didn't see a lot of value in it. IIRC, the "benefits" I got were:

A wellness report I looked at once or twice.

Video workouts which I never used.

A way to measure my blood oxygen level, if I used specific watch faces and wore my watch to bed, which I don't like doing.

A lot of information on sleep tracking, which also required me to wear my watch to bed.

Some guided meditations - many of them featuring Deepak Chopra. This almost made me cancel it immediately after I started. There were a few non-Chopra ones I tried, but I didn't really like it.

I'm not sure if I didn't like the idea of guided meditation or didn't like the guide. I was already primed for skepticism due to seeing Chopra plastered all over the app, which wasn't a good mindspace to start a meditation.

At any rate, come December, I won't have it anymore. I wonder if I will notice the difference.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

This is an interesting skim, I'll put it here:

Frontiers | Fifty psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid: a list of inaccurate, misleading, misused, ambiguous, and logically confused words and phrases

[JoeP]

That article fails to give me closure. I think the authors are in denial and are acting out. They don't present empirical data. They are probably overly concerned about operational definitions for bystander apathy.

I'll await a scientific proof.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[viscousmemories]

I haven't resumed my daily walking routine since I got sick, but I did participate in the "Turkey Trot" 5k on Thanksgiving day (34:43--about middle of the pack for my age group) and went for a walk the day after, but then I had shin splints for a few days. I'll probably start walking again eventually but it's easy to use the sub-freezing weather as an excuse not to go outside and treadmills are so damn boring.

I'm also in what I call "holiday mode", which means I'm self-treating depression with snacking, sweets, and overeating at meal times. I will count it as a win if I gain <10 lbs before January 1st, and in any case I think I'll be a lot more motivated to get back on a healthy eating routine in the new year.

I'm still reading and writing every morning, although not reading as much at any other time so I'm not going through books as quickly as I did over the past few months. In my defense one of the books I read this month was Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" and although it is very good and I would have learned a lot had I read it in my 20's, I would have preferred something that covers the same ground in about 300 fewer pages.

All things considered my physical and mental health are in pretty good form.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

Dude. This is the second time you've posted memes with this text. Probably at 3am your time.

Anyway, love you right back.

[slimshady2357]

I'm still in the fight, but mostly struggling to maintain it seems. I am technically at the lowest for the year, but just looked back at my records and I'm only down 1lb total since the first week of June. So I'm happy I lost back all the holiday weight and a little more, but just been treading water for months.

No excuses really, I'm just in a little bit of a funk I guess. I'm hoping for more inspiration in the new year.

[Ensign Steve]

I still exist. It does get trying around the holidays. My shrink retired, and then my new shrink left the company, and now the company is being dissolved, so abandonment issues are on the rise.

I have had about 1 or 2 non-shrink doctor visits per week, follow-ups from that initial check. Regular doc, gyno, mamo, dentist, etc. I'm totally healthy, which is amazing to me. Good genes, I guess. I'm delinquent on mailing a piece of my shit to the ColoGuard folks, but there are limits to how much emotional effort I'm willing to spend on this.

I am regular-style sick today, starting last night, which almost never happens. Some flavor of rhinovirus I'm guessing, based on my symptoms. It's not covid, I tested negative this morning.

I remain consistent with Crossfit, a little less so with running, and I am enjoying the mental and physical rewards of doing regular exercise.

Mom came for a week in November, and she's coming back for Christmas. I love her, love spending time with her, but damn do we drink. bey and I put up some of our Christmas lights this weekend, and the tree. That always puts me in a good mood, it's so festive.

[Ari]

I’m still a fake vegetarian, mixing chicken nuggets in with beans as my protein seems to be getting me my full range of proteins without needing to eat multiple pounds of beans a day. I’m also attempting to exercise more, especially now that I’m getting correct protein again.

Since I sometimes forget to eat I can easily adapt to less calories of sedentary life, but when I’m active again, omg it feels like it takes so much food to fuel the body, can’t I just plug in at night or something!

[Ensign Steve]

I like my cult, I always have. It's like church, but you don't have to believe anything stupid supernatural. It's like AA, but with drinking. Most of the people are profoundly broken at least.

I went to my Crossfit holiday party last weekend. Bey is on travel, so I was on my own, and I started to have a bit of the social anxiety before I arrived, having second thoughts about going at all. But like any good cult, they did an excellent job of making me feel like I belonged there. Like I am special and smart for choosing to be a part of this community.

I had an awesome time. Any Crazy Ex-Girlfriend viewers here? Because these photos are to be viewed to the tune of I Have Friends I Definitely Have Friends.

[Ari]

Supposably journaling is good and I was considering starting it to help organize my thoughts especially as I’ve been mentally able to start/continue some previous projects, but I also don’t know much/anything about journaling.

I also remember multiple people here talking about doing journaling, so any advice on where to learn, or a method to use?

[vremya]

The holidays are hard for me, on top of the usual seasonal depression. I've been eating badly - way too much processed sugar - my job isn't so great. Not having a car has made getting to the gym really hard - it's a short bus ride away but the bus stop is in a pretty sketchy area and I don't want to be there after dark if I can help it.

I'm going to hit restart on January 1.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Ari

Supposably

I don't think you need to "learn" journaling and I don't think you can do it "wrong" - or right, for that matter. It's the activity that's important, and sticking to the. When you can. Not beating yourself up when you don't.

You probably just need to decide a time of day - a lot of people swear by "morning pages", others find evening important. It doesn't need to be fixed but some routine helps.
And decide if you are going to write on paper, possibly even in a book bought specially for the purpose, with a nice pen. Writing by hand definitely makes a difference, but in my case it's "what the fuck is this illegible crap from yesterday". It's the mental activity of thinking and putting thoughts into sentences that matters.

And decide, or work out after the first few days, if you are writing just for yourself, or for no one - burn/delete after a while - or for posterity, or as evidence of state of mind in your insanity defence when that becomes necessary.

[viscousmemories]

I made a resolution to keep a daily journal in 2022 and for the first time in my life I stuck with a resolution all year. In the beginning my plan was just to write a few paragraphs about how my previous day went with regard to diet, exercise, work, relationships, etc. But I had two problems with implementing that plan: not having a set time to do it or a target number of words. Thus I would sometimes procrastinate or forget altogether and then throw together one or two pointless sentences late in the day or even the next day.

In early February someone mentioned Morning Pages and although I had heard of the concept before this time it struck me as a perfect solution to my journal dilemma. It was explained as writing 750 words stream-of-consciousness first thing in the morning to clear your head of anything that might be banging around in there demanding attention. So that is what I've been doing since early February, and I plan to keep doing it next year.

Morning Pages are three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning. *There is no wrong way to do Morning Pages*–they are not high art. They are not even “writing.” They are about anything and everything that crosses your mind– and they are for your eyes only. Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand. Do not over-think Morning Pages: just put three pages of anything on the page...and then do three more pages tomorrow. - from The Artist's Way

[Ari]

Interesting!
On one hand I’m kinda looking for the exact opposite of that, something with structure, and on the other I think I only solidly realized that after I wrote some morning ramblings about journals in this thread, so perhaps you’re on to something here!

Also, damn good job keeping it up!

Originally Posted by JoeP

or as evidence of state of mind in your insanity defence when that becomes necessary.

Yes, I see, go on…

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Ari

On one hand I’m kinda looking for the exact opposite of that, something with structure

Yes, I think the stream-of-consciousness aspect of "morning pages" is not what "journaling" should be. But I don't think you should go for too much structure ... you don't want a pure checklist. But you can use one of course.

[ceptimus]

It helps stop procrastination. Instead of thinking about what you're going to do first today, you just have the ready-made easy task of writing some stream of consciousness stuff that no one else is ever going to read. I wouldn't even stretch it to three pages necessarily - perhaps, 'at least one page, but no more than three' ?

And then once you've kickstarted yourself to actually do something, maybe you'll move on to doing a more productive thing - maybe one of the things you mentioned in your morning page(s).

[viscousmemories]

Originally Posted by JoeP

what "journaling" should be

It never occurred to me there was a wrong way to journal; what do you think it should be?

One thing about the "morning pages" approach that I've found super valuable is that I use it as the base of a "habit stack", as described by James Clear in Atomic Habits. The idea being that you structure habits such that finishing one serves as the cue to start another. For me the stack has looked like this* throughout the year:

morning pages->catch up on ff->read thehistoryblog->read book for 30 minutes->practice piano for 30 minutes->walk/jog 4 miles


*With modifications as the year went on, such as quitting piano by choice and not walking due to illness/weather, etc.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by viscousmemories

It never occurred to me there was a wrong way to journal; what do you think it should be?

The wrong way to journal is the way you do it any way that doesn't achieve your objectives, of course.

I think the word "journaling" is often used in the context of wanting to keep a record of specific aspects of the day. Keeping a journal, not just writing a journal.

[Ensign Steve]

Journaling is a huge part of my mental health maintenance. What I journal has everything to do with what is going on with my life at any given time. When I was in real rough shape, I did CBT workbook stuff. What were my triggers and how did I react to them. When I'm in training for something, like athletic or whatever, I write my goals and track the data like times and weights, etc. That stuff is easy because it's numbers and I love numbers. During the busy times like the holidays, it's more like an agenda/calendar with todo lists, etc.

If there's truly nothing going on, I have a minimum prompt of every day write down something that I consider a win, and write down something I'm grateful for. Sometimes just putting pen to paper with that minimal prompt is enough to get the juices flowing and I write more. And sometimes it's not.

If you're doing an analog solution, get a nice book with good paper, and a pen you like. Pamper yourself why not.