August 2021 – Practice of Wellness

Self-enhancement

• This article from an author I had no prior knowledge of links many ideas together: addiction, self-improvement, healing, expressive writing, fame. Such a beautiful piece about what motivates us to change. Some analysis of Buddhist principles, craving and aversion, the amazing transformation of Mike Tyson, work from Gabor Mate who has written about addiction and pain/trauma. Definitely worth the read.

Coleridge the Hypochondriac

• Fascinating article about the poet Coleridge and his obsession with his own bodily symptoms – “interrogating his bodily constitution was inseparable from his creative life.” Coleridge was fascinated with pain and used his own pain (rheumatism, fevers, boils, ‘treacherous bowels’) to explore the mind/matter dichotomy. (He also used opium for this).

“The poet’s “excessive sensibility” was “the disease of genius”. Coleridge loved to invent words, and the term he coined for the connections between mind and body was an enduring one: “psycho-somatic”.

Ketobrainz

• Check out a new coffee creamer / shake or smoothie addition, Ketobrainz. This MCT powder also has L-theanine for calm, Alpha GPC for choline, C-8 which is supposed to be the medium chain triglyceride that most quickly converts to ketones, and Lion’s mane mushroom extract.
• No sugar added, mixes pretty well with coffee, though it is best to use a push whisk or a blender. Not cheap for a bag but it lasts a long time – half a scoop will work for a large cup of coffee.

Hero

• While reading the book Tombstone, which gives a factual account of the events captured in one of the best movies of all time, I learned about the Apache warrior Cochise (in Apache: Shi-ka-She or A-da-tli-chi). A large man for the time, Cochise was a formidable presence in the Apache wars. His name means “having the quality or strength of oak.” He was captured my Mexican fighters but was able to escape, then evaded further capture by white settlers until a peace treaty in 1872.

“After the peace treaty, Cochise retired to the short-lived Chiricahua Reservation (1872–1876), with his friend Jeffords as agent. He died of natural causes (probably abdominal cancer) in 1874 and was buried in the rocks above one of his favorite camps in Arizona’s Dragoon Mountains, now called the Cochise Stronghold. Only his people and Tom Jeffords knew the exact location of his resting place—and they took the secret to their graves.”

Sprints

• You get plenty of posts about sprinting, how effective it is for fat burning and how efficient it is for a quick workout. This brief post gives some cool ideas on how to incorporate jumping into a routine, or to just sneak it in as workout snacks.
• Skip down to the jumping workout sequence for details. But you don’t have to get complicated. If you want to get an intense brief workout, just squat down and jump up high off the ground. Do 10-20 of those and you’ll feel it. Be careful though, if you are not used to jumping exercises you can hurt your calf muscles or achilles tendon. Start slowly.

Creativity

• How creative are you? Take this very quick test of divergent creativity. I can’t give way the task because you must read it and fill it out quickly. Pretty cool to see your score and percentile. Thanks Mateo for the rec.

Clean Energy

• For a relatively clean energy drink, check out FitAid. They have many varieties, but FitAid zero and FitAid Rx zero both have no carbs. They add various vitamins and supplements depending on the variety, FocusAid, ImmunityAid, even GolferAid. The FitAid zero’s two also have only 45mg of caffeine, about the same as a 12 ounce Coke or Pepsi.

Well-being

• The Practice of Wellness newsletter serves as a reminder to spend some time each day on personal wellness. The compound interest of this daily practice adds up, whether you are putting effort into self-care or constantly making small withdrawals that hurt yourself. But what does well-being even mean? An important distinction involves eudaimonic vs hedonic wellbeing.
• Eudaimonic, or psychological wellbeing “refers to the more intrinsically motivated side of life – autonomy, a sense of mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, self-acceptance, and purpose in life.” This is what contentment or peace looks like.
• This is in contrast to hedonic, or subjective wellbeing (“people’s emotional states – the balance between their positive and negative feelings, and the extent to which they are satisfied with life,” ie happiness). You can be happy but lack meaning, or have meaning but lack happiness.
• Obviously the ideal is to have meaning in life, be content, and also experience positive emotion. But as many scholars and poets over the ages have pointed out, when you chase happiness, you seem to never catch it, often at the expense of your soul.
• The quotes above are from a great book on post traumatic growth called What Doesn’t Kill Us. Fortunately, in people who suffer trauma, and all of us really, greater eudaemonic well-being seems to lead to greater hedonic wellbeing. Chase after meaning and you get happiness.

Quotes

One of my favorite stories illustrating the power of our beliefs in volves the Berkeley math doctoral student George Dantzig. The story goes that George arrived late to his statistics class in 1939 and as sumed the two math problems on the chalkboard were homework. So he copied them down to solve that night. He found the problems more difficult than usual, but he returned to class with the answers after a few days and apologized to his professor for taking so long. Soon afterward, the professor tracked George down, brimming with excitement. As it turned out, George had solved two “unsolvable” open problems in statistical theory because he believed they were merely difficult homework assignments with known answers.

– I do not remember where I pulled this quote

“Like our stomachs, our minds are hurt more often by overeating than by hunger.” (Ut stomachis sic ingeniis nausea sepius nocuit quam fames.)

– Petrarch

The Station
Robert Hastings
(thanks Dan for the rec)

Tucked away in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We’re traveling by passenger train, and out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hills, of biting winter and blazing summer and cavorting spring and docile fall.
But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. There will be bands playing, and flags waving. And once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true. So many wishes will be fulfilled and so many pieces of our lives finally will be neatly fitted together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering … waiting, waiting, waiting, for the station.
However, sooner or later we must realize there is no one station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.
“When we reach the station, that will be it !” we cry. Translated it means, “When I’m 18, that will be it ! When I buy a new 450 SL Mercedes Benz, that will be it ! When I put the last kid through college, that will be it ! When I have paid off the mortgage, that will be it ! When I win a promotion, that will be it ! When I reach the age of retirement, that will be it ! I shall live happily ever after !”
Unfortunately, once we get it, then it disappears. The station somehow hides itself at the end of an endless track.
“Relish the moment” is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad. Rather, it is regret over yesterday or fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.
So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot oftener, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.