Flex Move Exert

All right. Let’s assume we have three weeks of good sleep behind us. That should take care of our sleep debt, right? We’re now waking up with sunny dispositions, no longer dreading the seemingly endless list of tasks and projects awaiting us. We have energy now that we never thought we could have. All from an extra hour or two of shut-eye a night, a night of sleep without interruption.

Great, fine and dandy. What’s next?

I think the next focus would have to be exercise. Next to a full night’s rest and recovery, exercise is the most immediate and most widespread activity you can do to change your life circumstances.

Here’s the thing: Everybody hates the word ‘exercise.’ I do, even when I loved doing it. But here’s the other, better thing: You don’t have to overdo it. In fact, if you do, you will only be harming yourself. No more harming yourself, right? So I encourage you not to overdo it. Don’t go overboard with the exercise.

There are three things you and I need to do in this area. They don’t take much time and effort, so there’s really nothing to worry about. When I do these three little things, even for just a couple of days, I noticeably feel better physically and mentally.

First, you have to stretch. The older you get, the more important this is, and I’m talking from experience. Being cramped and stiff physically really does lend to feeling cramped and stiff mentally. I don’t know why. But if those Indians thousands of years ago saw the wisdom in it, well, who are us factory-fed couch potatoes to disagree?

I have done yoga in the past. After my surgeries I did it for almost two months straight. But something with it never clicked with me. I felt sort of oogy with all the New-Agey spirituality and the Stepford-wives look on all the models in the yoga videos. If you like it and can stick with it, great, but I can’t. But I do like the feeling of being well-stretched out. I think it has something to do with the blood circulation, but that’s just a guess. I’m just speaking from experience here.

So I spend five minutes twice a day stretching. I usually do it in the kitchen. I stretch the hammies, the quads, my calves. Then I reach for the sky and bend to the left and the right. I stretch out my upper and lower arms, and do that thing with your head where you slowly and carefully swivel it about 360 degrees, stretching your neck. If I’m feeling particularly energetic (not so much lately, but often last summer) I’ll do some of the old yoga poses. I got very flexible six months ago, now I’m very tight again.

The other two things you need to do to really improve how you feel is – wait, you’ve heard it before – cardio and weight-lifting.

I loved weight-lifting, but not so much cardio. I went through a jogging phase as a pre-teen and again from 2001-2004, but aside from that I always hated cardio. And to top it all off, the doctor says I need to primarily do cardio for my heart.

The trick is to make it fun.

The funnest part is that you get one day a week off. Great!

The second funnest part is that you alternate your cardio and weight-lifting days, so you’re never overloaded time-wise or energy-wise. Awesome!

The third funnest part is that you are not required to do it for longer than 20 minutes at a sitting. Bitchin’!

Violate any of the above rules and we will penalize you severely! You are not to be a hero! You are merely trying to strive for the perfection of consistency.

They say swimming is the best cardio, ’cause its low-impact. Rather, it’s no-impact. No pavement-pounding to worry the knee ligs. Since I don’t have a pool or the money to afford membership at the Y, I ride my stationary bike. Boring, but I get through it. Problem is, I only last a little over ten minutes. The doc said it’s okay, so long as every time I do it I go a little bit longer. I’m sporadic with this, because I dislike cardio so much and it’s so difficult for me now, but back in July-August I did the bike consistently for six or seven weeks. As far as measurable results go, my bad lung improved 50% in functionality, and my doctor encouraged me to keep up and keep on.

So, ideally, I’d do my bike Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Up to 20 minutes at at time.

Then, you gotta do weights on the other three days. There are two arguments that I always found persuasive. First, tangible: Muscle burns more calories than fat, so the more muscle you carry, the greater your resting metabolism. That means you can eat more, relatively speaking. Second, the intangible: The more muscle you carry, the more confident you are. This is something I’ve known ever since my dad first brought me and my brother down to the basement thirty years ago to lift some rusted five- and ten-pound plates.

I used to have all the big weights and benches and accessories, but I gave most away. Now I use a 76-pound metal weight set with two dumbbells. I do curls, overhead presses, push-ups with those raised push-up handles, calf raises and leg dips. Without distraction, I can do two sets of each in 20 minutes. Put on some Henry Rollins or AC/DC, and the time goes by quickly and enjoyably. You find the right mix for yourself, but you need to do it.

So, ten minutes a day every day stretching. Twenty minutes a day doing, on alternate days, cardio and weightlifting, with a day off. Total time spent, weekly, on your physique: 190 minutes, a little over three hours. Out of 168 hours. That’s not even 2 percent of your entire week. You spend more time watching teevee commercials, for cryin’ out loud. So, put in the three hours. Not a bad investment, time-wise, for something that will bring back so very, very much more.

Do it!

Oh to Sleep Perchance to Dream

In thirty years or so experience as an adult and dozen or so years of reading the topic off and on, I have come to the conclusion that the most immediate and important thing anyone can do is get a good night’s sleep.

But let’s back up a bit, shall we?

Metaphysics 101 – What is a man? He’s a being composed of three elements: physical, mental, and spiritual. Because they are fundamentally intertwined, in order for a man to be healthy, all three elements must be healthy. Or, put another way: the healthier the being and functioning of each three element, the healthier the man.

Nothing new there, right?

But here’s something new for me, at least when I first read it five or six years ago. If you have a whole bunch of Herculean things in need of doing, areas in your life that need improvement, whatever and whatnot, follow this advice: Start with the physical. Why? Well, first, because it’s often the easiest (or at least the most obvious), and it spills into other areas of your life more quickly and in ever-widening effect than, say, trying to improve some part of your mental or spiritual life.

There are several broad ways to improve one’s physical condition. The most important aspect to think about, to correct, I think, is one’s sleep. Because basically, if you don’t get a good night’s sleep, everything else – and I mean everything – becomes all that more difficult.

I haven’t got a good night’s sleep in forever. Seriously. Probably a good six or seven years, at least. I even dream about sleep. My fantasy is waking up in a giant bed, all by my lonesome, in some open-aired castle tower room, with a gentle, warm breeze stirring me, waking up refreshed after a good eighteen or twenty-four hour deep, refreshing, regenerative sleep. Last night I woke up six times in my seven-hours of “sleep”: twice to relieve myself, once to drink some water, once to take care of Little One’s nightmare, once by my wife flipping over and once by the phone ringing at 6:30 am. Now, that’s extreme, but every night is some variation of that theme. Two or three interruptions over a night’s sleep that’s two or three hours short of optimum.

So I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing substantial will ever get done until you take care of your sleep habits, first. I do get some decent sleep now and then. The best tips are all tips you’ve heard before. When I follow them, I generally sleep well. And when I don’t, well, I’m like a hungry bear the next morning, and my family suffers.

Face this fact: however much sleep you’re getting, you’re not getting enough. Sleep is one of those things where you can’t trade off quantity and still maintain quality. So you need to put the hours in, but remember that you’re body is resting, recharging, healing, strengthening. Know that. So the choice is to go to bed earlier, or sleep later. That adage about keeping the same sleeping schedule on the weekends as you do during the week is true. I have trouble getting to bed before midnight (the house is so quiet, and there’s so much I can get done – read, write, watch what I want on the tube – that’s it almost too good to spend in slumber!) but if I disciplined myself to nod off at 11, my health would improve noticeably. And I mean, others would notice it, not just me.

Now, to me at least, there are two other main problems with sleep. The first is getting to sleep; the second is staying asleep. I have difficulty with both, but I found a few things helpful.

I find getting a To-Do list in order an hour or two before bed (but not right at bed-time) works best in getting my mind placid. I feel better that there’s a plan in place and things aren’t slipping between the cracks. It gives my mind permission to think about pleasant things, and not Bills, Chores, Projects, Deadlines, blah blah blah. You’ve also heard the advice not to watch teevee right before bed. I agree wholeheartedly, though often I ignore it. It’s easier to get to bed after you’ve read something inspiring and interesting, rather than watching an autopsy and someone get shot. Obvious, right?

I pray at night, and one thing I incorporate is to try to list ten things I accomplished during the day. It’s a fun and enjoyable exercise and sends you off in a great frame of mind. More than half the time I’m out before I’ve finished the list.

Okay, I have children so I will be wakened during the night. That’s unavoidable. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t things I can do to help stay asleep. First and foremost, and most difficult for me, is no food or drink after, say, 8 pm or so. I’ve read convincing arguments that food in the process of being digested will disrupt the sleep cycle. And 10 pm at night is no time to make up a shortfall in hydration by chugging glasses of water.

So: Before any heavy lifting is attempted, you start with the physical. And the physical part you start with is your sleep. I am amazed at how well when I do get what for me is a good night’s sleep; if I could work these simple principles over the course of two or three weeks I should feel unstoppable.

Armamentarium

For a while now I’ve been thinking about doing a series on … well, getting back on course, I suppose.

Personally, I’ve been in limbo for a long time now. Going on a year, actually. A year ago I was in very desperate straights. Nothing seemed to be going right, nothing seemed to be going my way, and unbelievable, barbaric pressure seemed to be building beyond tolerance on all sides. I was stuck, and this being stuck was the scariest thing of all. I felt optionless. It was so terrifying I was praying for a way out, any way.

Remember the movie Goodfellas? Remember towards the end, when Henry is doing this and that and everybody is giving him something to do, and he’s thinking there’s a cop behind every tree and he even thinks that helicopter is following him? Yeah, he was loaded up on drugs, but I wasn’t doing much better. Well, Henry has to drop off some chick at a hospital, I think, and the doctor sees him, and says, “Hey, you should stay here and let me take a look at you!” Henry’s at the breaking point, and the physical and mental exhaustion screams at you like that Edvard Munch painting. I used to look in the mirror and see that look, too: the day’s-growth of beard, the sweaty complexion, the cavernous shadows around the eye.

I won’t go into my physical difficulties of a year ago; that’s been covered ad nauseum in these posts. But I was trapped in a high-pressure, low-pay, dead-end job with no relief in sight. Indeed, I was spending most of my off-hours in search of relief. I was drinking like a fish. I was eating anything that had sugar as its prime ingredient. I was staying up later and later into the early morning hours, searching the web, searching through books, searching for anything that would bring me relief. My family needed me – especially a four-month-old Patch – but I hadn’t the strength to be there.

So, February 2009 happened. And I’ve been in an eleven-month stretch of limbo ever since.

Now it’s time for a jump start.

This next week or ten days will really be for me, but if you’d like to join me on this little thought-experiment, you are welcome. Starting tomorrow I want to get as much out as I can, on e-paper. I have but a road map, so I’ll be fleshing it out as I go along.

And the road leads to … peace of mind, I suppose. That’s the ultimate destination.