On The Right Track

There comes a point when routine can trap you. I find myself working out my daily routine down to the minute. If I wake up at 6:22 and am out of the shower and dressed by 6:50 I can make the 7:13 train which means I am in the city by 7:46 and can get the 4:05 train home. That puts me in the house at 5:15 which gives me four hours to do...

And that's when I realize, I am timing everything perfectly to get home and do exactly what I do all day. Sit, stare, repeat. I wake up tired in the morning, but my complete and utter inactivity all day long leaves me wide awake at night. This however contradicts my motivation. While I have too much energy to fall asleep early, I have no motivation to do anything other than get home immediately and lounge.

Another thing I wish I did more of but cannot seem to is read. I get really interested in stories and pick up books but have a hard time getting into them and finishing them. Ever since college, opening a book is like taking an Ambien. I just pass out, without realizing it, after 5 minutes of reading.

This past weekend, while in NY, I borrowed the Scott Pilgrim series from my roommate. The movie is coming out, I had hear great things before, and it is something light. I figure, I can start small. I don't have to start reading historical non-fiction. If I can get used to sitting on the train at 7 am and reading for that 40 minute ride without falling asleep, maybe I can move on to novels later. The comics are fast paced enough and engaging enough that I am able to stay alert (for the most part) the entire ride. Hopefully after I get through the entire series (takes about a day per book and theres 4 more to go after today) I can move to something a bit more dense, or even more graphic novels. Regardless, I want to use this time to read, and I am making a serious effort to train my brain to do so.

Back to the inactivity - I am not a gym person. I have been to gyms in the past. By the past I mean when I was 12 or 13 and would tag along with my dad because I liked sports then and thought it was exciting to go to the gym. It was one of those "I'm old enough to do something adults/athletes do now" mentality. I maybe went 5 times total over several months before I stopped caring.

Flash to present and I still have that 'who cares' mentality when it comes to being in shape. I don't to do anything physically to keep from gaining weight and so staying in shape for my lifestyle seems silly. That has always been my mentality. It still remains that way. However, I have recently decided that going to the gym affords me with the following - A. Something else to do at night except sit more and watch more screens and B. An energy outlet that will hopefully leave me tired enough at the end of the night so that I can get a good rest in and not be up until 12:30 or 1 am. If, after this, I am in better shape or a bit healthier then so be it. But, if it does not satisfy those first two, this gym thing might be short lived.

Side note: funny how most comic personalities on shows/in cartoons are depicted as out of shape/overweight and yet in my case they go hand in hand as far as getting on track with positive things.

(and if you are going to scoff at my reading of comics as my reading activity, feeling as though comics are not a legitimate source of literature then clearly you are ignorant to an entire genre.)

All Natural

I don't know when it happened but at some point I decided I wanted to try to use medicine as little as possible. I have mentioned this on here before, several months ago when I was unable to put up with or improve upon how I was feeling and took some benedryl.

A few days ago I wrote about how since last Friday I had been suffering 24 hour cycles of the same discomfort. It has not been a full 24 hours without it yet, but I would like to think I am out of the woods. I woke up today about an hour before my alarm was meant to go off and noticed I still had the headache I went to sleep with. By the time I made and ate breakfast an hour later, however, the headache had subsided. There were points during the day where I felt it coming back but it never did. I sit here at 2 in the morning and can state that I have no chills and no head pain.

Although it was not pleasant, I was able to overcome this little illness with two simple steps. I drank a lot of water and I ate an apple a day. I have been told before that headaches can be brought on by dehydration and even if that was not the cause - drinking more water and less of other things every day can only be an improvement. Secondly I have been eating more fruit, specifically apples. I read that apples contain natural aspirin in them. Again, like the water, at the very least, eating an apple a day is a smart decision and they are delicious.

I will not claim that either of these decisions caused my improvement but they were both healthy decisions and I am feeling healthier and that's a nice thing to report.

Just in time for what could be another punch in the face (snow storm). I know I said the other day that I was over the snow for this year. I am going to, in retrospect, blame it on how I was feeling. I have rallied and I say, bring on the snow.