Category Archives: Rest

relax

March 27, 2015 6:08 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been running full tilt this year.  Been keeping busy as much as possible and trying to get things done and trying out as many new activities as I can in my spare time.

I’ve been programming my spare time, mainly the weekends, for the last few months and I’ve been able to see and do a lot of cool and fun stuff these few months.

But inevitably you are going to get a weekend that you’re not going to have anything to do.  Now to clarify, I always have some chore or some thing to accomplish but I generally have more spare time on the weekends, generally in the evenings, to do something and I’ve been putting that to good use.

Like I said however, you’re going to roll into one of those weekends where either nothing appeals to you particularly, or the timing doesn’t work out, or you just don’t feel like doing anything in particular.

Unprogrammed time.  It happens.  In a way it’s a good thing.  Just a chance to let things settle down and let your mind relax.  We all need that sort of weekend from time to time.  At first I was a bit anxious about it as I thought to myself “come on, I have to have some “thing” to do”

But really this is just one weekend out of hundreds.  Maybe this will give me a chance to reflect, to take turn off the smart phone and just think, or at the very least just hit the reset button on my mind and start fresh on Monday morning.

Putting pressure on myself to have something to do is good in most cases but becoming fixated on that notion is not.  Using this time to really relax is a gift I should embrace.

 

Posted in: attitude, habits, hobbies, life in general, plans, rest, thought

An all out effort

February 15, 2015 6:12 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Pressure builds and keeps on building.  That’ just the way that life is.  The more you do, the more you have to worry about and the more reactive and proactive you have to become to keep everything going at the same time.

More than once in a while things will blow up.  I think it’s inevitable.  Then of course you have to scramble to assess the damage and to try to fix things.  Nothing is ever easy.

In the course of all of this effort you might suddenly find that you’re not feeling all that great.  Maybe one morning you will wake up and you can’t quite pin it down but you know you’re not up to 100%.  The rest of your day is thrown off by this and over the next few days and weeks you start going downhill.

This type of generalized fatigue is common.  It’s the sort of thing that can’t be pinned down and will slowly but surely seep in and affect all aspects of your life.

So what can be done?  You obviously have to address this before you can continue on with any of your other activities.  But you can’t just stop everything.  Luckily you don’t have to.

The problem lies in the way you live your life and how you are living your life and the solution is also found there.  Not in one aspect of your life or one activity but in all of it.

Stopping one activity or one part of your life will not get rid of your fatigue.  I mean maybe one part may be more directly responsible than others but I think it has to do with your life as a whole.  You have to modify everything you do to cure this disease.

So in no particular order.

Exercise – Maybe it’s time to cut down one part of your exercise regimen or change it up so you focus on another exercise.  Then again maybe you’ve not been getting enough exercise.  Add up all your weekly exercise hours and think to yourself “Is this too much or not enough?”

Diet – We all eat crap.  Sometimes it’s unavoidable.  You get invited out to too many meals with clients or family or friends.  Sometimes we indulge in a little treat and before you know it that treat becomes a regular meal.  Sometimes you find yourself eating “lunch” at 3PM and dinner at 10PM.  Try to exercise a little diet discipline.  On the other hand eating the same healthy foods all the time may make your system acclimated to a certain energy level.  Shake up your routine.

Work – The 40 hour work week is a poor joke to those who want to get ahead.  But 80 or even 100 hour weeks?  Come on!  Realize that there are only 168 hours in a week.  At some point in each day the line has to be drawn and that line cannot be crossed for anything.

Other work – You may have some outside interests or some other venture going on outside of work.  The same advice from above applies.  Remember that this was supposed to be a side project not the main focus of your life.  Treat it accordingly

Personal life – The main problem here is lending too much weight to this aspect of life. Sometimes you may have a problem in this aspect of your life and this bleeds over into other parts of your life.  You have to either address this problem or compartmentalize it.  Although I don’t advise doing the latter too much as it will inevitably escape out.  The other problem concerning personal life is that sometimes you don’t have one.  Focusing on work or exercise too much will over time lead to a hypnotic like state where you really don’t what you’re doing.  Break up the monotony.  Take time to do something pointless just for the sake of doing something pointless.  See some friends, talk to complete strangers.  Get another point of view in your life.

None of these suggestions will work on their own.  Rather it will be a combination of efforts in several different fields at various levels of intensity all working in concert to keep you balanced and working at the optimum level of efficiency.  There’s no one solution or one single therapy that will work universally.  What worked last year may not work this year.

All that I can advise is to keep vigilant and constantly reassess your personal needs with relation to your life.

 

Posted in: diet, environment, exercise, health, illness, life in general, rest, thought

Good Sunday mornings

March 8, 2014 6:39 AM , 2 Comments ,

Life gets annoying, hectic, even overwhelming at times.  You’ve got to have one day of rest or even just part of one day that nothing may intrude upon.  You do what you want and at your own pace.  You have no job appointments to get to and no critical duties to fulfill.

Sunday mornings.

It has always been my time for this.  Something about Sundays has always evoked lazy restful feelings within me.  Feelings of domesticity and getting done those things round the house that need doing but that don’t have to be done in a rush or tearing hurry.

Sleep.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a fan of sleeping.  I specially adore it when I’ve had a long day and I literally come home from some evening job function and undress and crawl into bed and fall asleep right away.  But spending 10 to 12 hour sleeping?  Not for me.  Five to six hours is my typical amount of sleep.  Eight hours would be a guilty pleasure.  Lying in bed all that time has no appeal for me.  Besides which I want to get things done in the morning.  Even if it is my day to be lazy I feel I need to get on with “being lazy”.

A run. unimaginable five years ago.  Now it’s just routine.  I feel more relaxed after a run.  Weekends are my challenge time.  So either on Saturday or Sunday I take an extra long run or try to better my time on my regular runs.  I usually do this on Saturday’s to keep my Sundays as lazy as possible.

The paper.  A real life paper.  Not just a digital edition.  Something with heft to it.  With ads for things that  I will never buy.  Long articles that I can think about and chew over in my mind.  Sports scores for sports I don’t care about.  Comics and crossword puzzles to fill out and erase when I get words wrong.

Breakfast.  I’ve done brunch in the past but I’m not too big a fan of it.  Brunch seems too fussy.

A real breakfast that isn’t calorie counted and nutritionally balanced and portion controlled.  Something home-made with eggs and random spices.  Pancakes or waffles?  Maybe but doubtful.  Even on Sundays my diet conscience nags at me about too many carbs and refined flour.

If the timing is right I may sometimes venture out to some small breakfast place to read the paper while I linger over a plate and a cup of tea for too long.  Maybe do some people watching as they come in and go out.  Watch the sun rise.

The weekly maintenance.  Floors to mop, light bulbs to replace, vacuuming.  Generally just keeping the household running for another week.  But none of it done in a hurry.  All at a relaxed pace.

Bills to pay and finances to go over.  Just out of tradition ever since college I’ve done this on Sundays at the breakfast table.  I write out, seal, and stamp the envelopes and head to the post office with the mail.

Noon, or noonish thereabouts.  The morning’s gone and the long Sunday afternoon begins.  Some time around this thoughts of Monday morning creep into my head.  The cycle begins again but I’m recharged and ready to face it again.

Posted in: activities, life in general, rest

good vs. bad tired

December 26, 2013 7:25 AM , 1 Comment ,

You know that feeling.

You’ve spent the last few hours working to make something, organize it, shape it and you see the results of your efforts bearing tangible fruit.  Doesn’t really matter if you’ve been out in the hot sun working with the land, building something from raw materials, or you’ve been hunched over a desk tapping away at a keyboard all day to write something up.

It’s the end of the day and you’re exhausted.  But you go to bed with a feeling of satisfaction, a feeling that no matter what else happens that you’ve created something with your brawn and your brain and that thing now has a definable shape and it’s real.

On the other hand, you’re out with your friends for a fun night out on the town.  You’re staying way past your normal time, almost certainly imbibing some sort of alcohol, possibly inhaling second-hand smoke.  You dance, walk round, sit on uncomfortable stools, get a ringing in your ear from too loud music, and come back home anywhere between 1 and 5 AM.

You hit the sack and you’re just as tired but do you feel that good tired feeling from having accomplished something?  Is there something physical out there to show that you did something actual or is it just the detritus of a long unproductive night?

That’s something I’ve noticed over the years.  Way back when, in my mid twenties, when I would go out on a weekend and the next morning look in my wallet and think to myself “where did all that money go to?”  I would mentally total up all the money I had spent over the course of the night and come to the conclusion “Oh yea, I guess that’s right.”  Then I would get this disappointed feeling like I’d just wasted not just money but my time.  When the night is over what’s left?

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy an occasional night out but I’ve long since given up that whole “working for the weekend” attitude of my younger days.  I’ve found that my time is better enjoyed and spent doing productive things.  Something that I can point to and say “I made this” or “I learned this or experienced this”.  I’m only sorry that I didn’t come to this conclusion much earlier in life.

 

 

Posted in: rest