Retrowalking
Check out this BBC article on walking backwards for health purposes. The practice may have originated in ancient China (“100 steps backward is worth 1000 steps forward”), but recent research confirms improved sports performance, muscle strength, brain benefits, and higher calorie burn (than walking forward). Thanks Mateo for this article and the many similar ones.
My favorite method, used daily on our recent vacation, involves setting a treadmill at the highest possible incline (usually 15 degrees) and walking 2.5 to 3 miles per hour. You can also throw on a backpack or hold some weights in your hands.
“Due to the difference in biomechanics, backwards walking can actually bring some physical benefits. It is often used in physiotherapy to relieve back pain, knee problems and arthritis. Some studies even suggest that backwards walking can positively affect cognitive abilities such as memory, reaction time and problem-solving skills.”
“Walking backwards for just 10-15 minutes per day over a four-week period increased the hamstring flexibility of 10 heathy female students. Backwards walking can also strengthen the muscles in the back responsible for spine stability and flexibility. And in another study led by Dufek, a cohort of five athletes self-reported a reduction in lower back painafter periods of backwards walking.”
Living in Mexico
Author and entrepreneur Tiago Forte wrote the book Building a Second Brain, a must read for anyone trying to organize the endless content and responsibilities we manage daily. Check out the book and his website.
This X post gives a brief summary of what Forte has noticed since moving his family to “small-town Mexico” 5 months ago.
How old is your body, really?
The “Phenoage” algorithm derives from the work of bioscientist Morgan Levine and collaborators, including Steve Horvath. For this “biological age calculator,” you only need very basic lab tests: a complete blood count (CBC), a complete metabolic panel (CMP), and a C-reactive protein (CRP). And of course, always take these biological vs chronological age calculators with a grain of salt.
Claimed as “the most cost-effective open-source science to calculate biological age,” the calculator uses the following inputs: Albumin, Alkaline phosphatase, Creatinine, Glucose, CRP, Lymphocyte count, mean cell volume (MCV), red cell distribution width (RDW), and white blood cell count (WBC).
Burnout
In David Whyte’s two Consolations books, the poet reflects on the deeper meanings behind words we use (often carelessly) every day. See this passage from Consolations II on burnout:
“Burnout is diagnosed by exhaustion, often caused by … assuming goals that actually belong to other people and which I have stolen to my detriment … always the realization that we have been measuring all the wrong things in all the wrong ways …the shallow rewards of false goals or false people.”
Whyte’s proposed remedy “is through the very things I laid aside on the way to exhaustion. The very path I took to arrive at this hollowed-out, burned out state, is the path I will take out of my imprisonment, back to what is precious to me.”
Aliens
Have you ever looked out at the stars at night and wondered, “Where are the universe’s other civilizations, and why haven’t they reached out to us?” Check out Tim Urban’s post on the Fermi Paradox.
Redemption
Found this cool quote from William James, from Is Life Worth Living? (1895):
For my own part, I do not know what the sweat and blood and tragedy of this life mean, if they mean anything short of this. If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight,—as if there were something really wild in the universe which we, with all our idealities and faithfulnesses, are needed to redeem; and first of all to redeem our own hearts from atheisms and fears. For such a half-wild half-saved universe our nature is adapted.
More bars
A new flavor of TruBar: Caramel Macchiato. These bars, though somewhat low in protein (12g), taste amazing. I haven’t had their mint chocolate or strawberry shortcake flavors yet.
Quotes
No amount of exaggeration will do justice to what actually happened.
– Oscar Wilde
The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.
– Bertrand Russell
