I was in an incredible groove yesterday. I’ve been letting go of the awful December I experienced and enjoying the new January energy. If you look at yesterday’s post I was absolutely in the zone. So I pushed myself thinking I can handle full capacity day. Mistakes were made in my enthusiasm. And well I’m probably in need of a rest. I over did it.
I often struggle with pacing and moderation. It’s important for me to remember that I’ve got a history as a workaholic. But I don’t want to feel as if I can’t push myself either. It’s the middle path I must walk. But it is hard to stay on it. I feel like every day I am sliding off the middle path right into the ditch. I’m getting better at getting myself back.
I used to be happy mailing elaborate detours. I’d take every exit on this metaphorical path in the past. But tonight I’m going to remind myself I’ve got a destination. And that is being responsible for keeping myself happy and healthy. So I’m going to get in bed and watch some TV and shitpost on Twitter
When I injured my ankle two weeks ago I was angry. I had been so focused on doing things. Every day was packed with obligations and routines. Walking, supplements, weight lifting, stretching and appointments all took up huge portions of my day. So I wasn’t exactly thrilled to add in an entirely new thing to my day. I was worried it would set me back on my progress both at work and with my health.
And yet it’s been delightful. I’ve just kind of let things happen. I’ve been in bed. I haven’t been pushing to get in steps or raise my heart rate. I’m just vibing. Whatever the day brings I’m taking it in.
And I feel fantastic. My mind is sharp. I’m moving forward all the projects and investments I prioritize. It feels like by pulling back on all my other routines because I needed my ligaments to heal I’ve suddenly improved everything else in my life. It feels like life is fun again. That I’m spending my time on things that make me happy.
It reminds me of a favorite line from my therapist. “Be a human being not a human doing.” Was it possible in my efforts to improve my resting heart rate or put gains on my lifts that I was affecting my happiness and my intellect? By trying to improve myself had I been making myself miserable? Once again I’m learning that just letting myself live is the best way to achieve my goals. If you feel stuck maybe just chill and vibe for a bit?
I’ve been off my feet all week because of my ankle injury. That means no weightlifting, no long walks, no breaks to raise my heart rate once an hour. I’ve been in a state of rest and recovery. And my mind has never felt sharper.
My quantified self data suggests I’m more recovered than I’ve been the entire year. My resting heart rate is a full 40% better than average. I’ve added in a few new routines to facilitate healing including infrared sauna, applied hot and cold therapy, percussive massage and electro-stimulation. But I really think it’s all the extra rest I’ve been getting.
I can feel it in my desire to do frivolous things just for the joy of it. But I can also feel it in my skyrocketing motivation. Some long term projects are coming into fruition in ways that not only meet my goals but wildly exceed them. Like all of the power I’ve ever imagined having is completely reasonable. I don’t even feel like I need to suffer for it. It’s there because I have joyfully brought myself it it.
It’s quite possible the lesson I should take away from this is that constantly pushing myself for improvements through hard work and pain is completely the wrong approach to getting what I want. That real power comes from letting yourself live within the rhythms of your own life. Letting what you want flow through you means sometimes it will be easy. And that’s ok too. Let yourself succeed with the power of your own unique approach. It’s the most differentiated thing. And difference is always an edge.
One of my favorite hobbies used to be powerlifting. When I had to take time off to control my ankylosing spondylitis (it’s an inflammatory spinal condition) I was simply in too much pain to walk around the block let alone squat 250lbs. But as we’ve controlled my symptoms so efficiently I’ve been able to pick back up weightlifting this fall. I’m overjoyed as this represents full recovery to me.
I’ve been slowing introducing weight using the core barbel lifts using the Starting Strength method. It’s been a blast as I get to have beginner gains all over again after being sedentary. The biggest change in how I train compared to my time before managing a rheumatoid condition is timing my training around my recovery. I used Whoop and Welltory who both measure my HRV or or heart rate variability. It’s basically a measure of how well your autonomic nervous system is coping with stress and turns out to the best predictor of how well I will feel on any given day.
A recovery chart of my HRV with red marking the days I lifted.
I’ve noticed that lifting hits my HRV hard. And it takes time to get it back to a normal place. Sometimes several days. I absolutely cannot not push my recovery frame without making my HRV dip even worse. It’s fascinating to see how well correlated the two appear to be.
On days when my HRV dips my resting heart rate is noticeably worse and using an app like Welltory I can see much more stress I’m under and how damn active my sympathetic nervous system is at work. The stress of recovery is significant. And my symptoms will tend to flare. Pain and fatigue are noticeably worse.
Despite the evidence I have found it mentally challenging for me to trust this stress and recovery process. On bad days when my HRV dips I forget how well I felt on the good days which leads me to some emotional flailing. Instead of trusting the routine I’ll panic at how shitty I feel. I’ve got amnesia about how terrific & productive I can be.
I’ve got to learn to trust the numbers. Otherwise I’ll do stupid shit like push to get something done on a bad day. That activity will take hours of hemming and hawing and willpower and brute force. If I had just waited for a good day to get my shit done chances are the task will take me 5 minutes.
Forcing myself to abide by the recommendations of Whoop and Welltory gets me out of the cycle of flailing. Listening to the data can override my amnesia. If a bad HRV day happens I just don’t try to do ANYTHING. Because I know on a good HRV day I’ll be 1000x more productive. It’s a discipline I need.
Everyone has different capacity. Forcing yourself into the “industrially necessary” routine of a 9-5pm weekday only makes sense if you are in a bigger corporate system and must be reliable even if you are not performing at your best.
Freeing myself from the mentality of being available on a bourgeois schedule is challenging. I hate feeling like I disappoint people by not always being “on” and productive. I feel like availability & reliability matter more than outcome (which is occasionally true but not generally true). The reality is you can have 10x Julie or you can have consistent Julie. I’d pick 10x personally.
Is it possible to have brief periods of burnout? I’d always associated it with the years on the other side of a startup. If you’ve put in long hours for an extended period it makes sense to have a year or more of recovering from dipping into reserves for too long. But I wonder if it might be possible to have a week of burnout from a couple intense months.
I wrapped a few big projects last week. It was easier than anticipated and I felt a real sense of joy and accomplishment. But then this week I was a bit of a mess. I had several days of terrible sleep. Then I burned my hand making breakfast. Fun fact blisters are a form of burn, which finally made sense once I experienced a real burn as it’s healing looked exactly like a blister you get from a hiking boot. I’m feeling a sense of overwhelm with the drumbeat of preventative care and appointments that comes from 20 months off from things like dentists. I just felt like I got nothing done that was important to me this week. It was one thing after another. And it seems like others are feeling the stress as well.
Maybe it’s alright to have a week of feeling unproductive. I was very on for all of September and October and then I wrapped some stuff so it’s possibly normal to feel like all focus and willpower has gone out the window. But the temptation to force a fix on it is quite strong.
I’ve got a habit of turning everything into an opportunity for self improvement. I’ve been concerned about my capacity for using self control as a way to abuse myself. It’s been a running theme that I find myself concerned about the work that goes into keeping myself productive and healthy. So maybe it’s just par for the course. But I’m already worried about next week as I’ve got 4 fucking doctors appointment including one that involves a long drive. Maybe there is never a world where productivity is easy to come by and I should let go of the worry. The days are short but the years are long. And progress compounds over time.
I never really thought of myself as a perfectionist. But I have impossibly high standards for myself that may be unproductive.
While I’m sure some of it innate, some of it is nurture. I went to a school system called Waldorf Schools that didn’t have grades. Every child was evaluated against their individual performance and each class was deliberately taught to the best student in the class not to some perceived middle. That’s left me with a habit of always believing I can improve and also the expectation that our average performance must be comparable to the best.
Of course this is unrealistic if one continues to climb up social, economic, intellectual and cultural ladders. I kept looking for my limit and then finding a new mountain to climb. Know I know there will always be mountains. And that perhaps it’s ok to take some shortcuts on your journey.
I really struggle with shortcuts. So am forcing myself into taking some so I can let go of some of my impossible standards.
I don’t scan books. I read them. So I bought a really bad prepper novel and am forcing myself to take shortcuts in pacing and focus. It’s so bad I don’t have a choice. I have to skip a lot or else I just wouldn’t finish.
I had to go to an appointment today. Normally I’d be sure to shower and wash my hair if I need to be in polite company. I showered yesterday but I just didn’t feel like going to the trouble two days in a row. So I put dry shampoo in my hair and opened up weight wipes for my nether regions. I doubt anyone would have noticed but a shortcut in my grooming routine was pretty liberating.
Today is also Election Day. My hometown has a bunch of local ordnance changes and some important bond related measures. It’s also city council elections. I’ve been following all the ballot issues but I just couldn’t find any city council people I liked. I read all the local papers and they all suck. None of them remotely come into my preference wet. So I took a shortcut. I voted on all the ballot issues and left the city council blank. I just wasn’t going to spend any more time picking lesser evil candidates.
These may seem like pretty different issues and maybe I’m also not fully committed to my civic duty (I’d argue as a democracy it’s a right to abstain from a vote if your conscience cannot condone it). But the point is that instead of getting bogged down in every unrealistic expectation I had of myself I could just take a shortcut.
When I first started my practice of writing every single day I had the goal that I would do it for 30 straight days. I started on New Year’s Day and we all know how most resolutions end for people. But I figured one day at a time right? Sure I wanted to start a practice that would go further than a month but I didn’t want to jinx myself so I didn’t set a goal of reaching any fixed number on January 1st.
So today ten months later on day 300 of writing every single day I’ll admit I have ambitions for this space that I don’t want to say out loud. I want to enjoy the moment. I want to note the occasion. And maybe I want to feel a little not accomplished.
Which was a theme I also explored on day 100. And again on day 200. I suspect I’ll say something if I make it to one full year of writing daily. Maybe I’ll have the pleasure of noting every 100 days again. Perhaps it’s human nature to notice the markers but to be a little afraid to make a big deal out of them.
We know in our hearts the accomplishments we seek but we dare not same then out loud. No inviting in evil spirits right? Even though I suppose we might be inviting in the angels just as easily. So maybe I’ll just say that I would love to make it day 1,000. The idea of having a record of my thoughts for years seems like a heady ambition.
I don’t want to opt myself into something that may not serve me in the future. One reason I’ve loved this exercise is because I felt like I opted into it every single day. It was always a choice and I always made it. It has been an enjoyable experience and a daily discipline. So I hope it’s one that continues to serve me. And I’d it doesn’t that’s ok too. May we make all choices in freedom.
I lost about six or seven weeks to the whole vaccine situation. Thankfully nobody cared since it was August. But I cared. I didn’t do anything for weeks from all the side effects and management of the process. I only bring this up (and I should write a full post about getting vaccinated as I wrote one about the decision and its risk management) because it’s been a while I needed to actively rest.
I had nearly two months where I didn’t couldn’t pursue any strain like weightlifting or even hiking because I was under enough strain from my own body. And I know this because I used a Whoop to track recovery and strain. Biohacking is a bit of a hobby. I had low strain scores and virtually no activity. I spent all my time in what Whoop calls recovery. But not this week. This week I had strain. And then I learned what a poor recovery from too much strain looks like.
A Whoop recovery score of 32% based on a terrible HRV of 13. Plus I’ve got tachycardia.
This week in addition to a significant workload (ask me about my rolling fund if you are into that sort of thing) I decided to pick back up my powerlifting hobby. I changed up my diet to eat enough protein and calculated out new one rep maximums for a basic starting strength routine.
It felt awesome. Squats are the best. And my overhead presses were better than I imagined. I had this moment of hope that maybe I was well enough to train again after several years of health trouble. I felt empowered. I was working through the delayed onset muscle soreness with a Theragum (something I normally cannot tolerate with my past inflammation levels). I was doing range of motion restoration work. I thought I had it all under control. And then on Friday I saw my resting heart rate variably or HRV start to drop.
I thought oh shit I must be getting sick. Normally a dip in HRV is a hint that my inflammation in my spine will kick back up and all the exciting secondary health stuff like fatigue (from pain) and migraines (from the shitty circulation from the inflammation) will go in circles.
But it turns out that I’m not getting sick. My symptoms didn’t flare. Instead I was tired.
Honestly I’m a little pissed. Normally I only take rest days when I feel sick. I only feel tired when I am sick. This being tired and having my heart be strained because I was overworked physically is bullshit. Normally if I am tired it is because I am fatigued. I mean that feeling you have when you are sick because your system is going haywire. It’s not the same thing as tired. Being tired isn’t debating. Being tired is actually great. I just need to take it easy today because I did too much. Not because I’m sick. Thank god it is Sunday so that day of rest is well timed.
I haven’t figured out how to incorporate my routines into my busier workdays. I feel like I’ve written this blogpost at least 3-4 times but somehow I never seem to find balance easily when I make big changes to how I spend my time.
All the self care efforts that has become comfortable rhythms go by the wayside as soon as I add in new obligations. And then my body gets pissed that I’m not taking care of it and I get into the same pattern of two steps forward and one step back.
You’d think after experiencing this issue multiple times I’d be better at ramping change slowly but I remain the sort of person that loves to dive into shit head first.
After much enthusiasm and progress I’m writing todays post from a physically mediocre places. My stomach is upset. I am fighting off a migraine. My muscles are tense. I’m anxious about all of these symptoms turning into a messy cascade. So I’m turning to my pharmaceuticals, taking a mess of prescriptions, and going to bed. Maybe tomorrow is another chance to find a better balance.
I’ve been going to a bunch of appointments in the past week or so. And I’ve got a bunch more lined up in the coming weeks. My calendar is a mess of obligations; optometrist, dentist, gynecologist, and the hair salon for starters. I feel like I’m drowning in appointments.
I made the mistake of not capitalizing on the last dip in case numbers in the late spring and early summer and missed the pandemic window before delta. I didn’t want to make that mistake again so I’ve been hustling to have the appointments that I’ve been putting off for the last 19 months. Check my eyes, check my teeth, check my fiddly bits. And yes cut my hair. God is my hair long.
There is so much maintenance work that has been piling up that I wonder how I’ve made it through the entire pandemic putting all of these life chores off. Has everyone been putting off their appointments? Was it just me? Or is it just people who are still trying to limit their exposure to infection?
I grant I’ve got a very different risk profile than the average American but I feel like it’s probably not unusual to put off stuff you are supposed to do but can probably live life without. But should you? So far no one has found anything wrong but maybe it’s just luck that I could go for two years without someone checking my tits or my teeth.
I didn’t put off any of my truly crucial health appointments over the pandemic but I am sure other people did. The eye doctor is something I tell myself I can put off for two years but maybe that’s a rationalization. Did others do that with annual physicals? With breast exams? What else have we been putting off in our appointments. It feels like I put off my entire life. And now I’m scrambling to fit it all in before something else has happens.
