Promises, promises and promises
Quote of the week
Moderation in All Things: Adopt a balanced lifestyle, incorporating healthy eating, moderate exercise, and ample rest.
Mindful Awareness: Practice mindfulness and self-awareness to understand and control impulses related to diet and exercise.
Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher
Hello,
I think it is quite common to try to change your life style in the beginning of the year. Must be all those new year promises. They do tend to fade away after some time. I have been inspired by two limited tv-series on Netflix: Live to be 100 - Secrets of the Blue Zones and You are what you eat - The Twin Experience. And, as you see from the quote above
Healthy life style
The blue zones are certain areas in the world where people live to be 100. Dan Buettner travelled to five of these zones: Okinawa, Japan; Ikaria, Greece; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Loma Linda, California. A summary of the finds, on how the people were living, and what these five places had in common was:
Healthy food and home cooking.
Every day exercise - no gyms, spinning or any other modern way of exercising, just the normal daily movements of walking and/or biking to where you are going; working in the garden etc.
Social network - a set of friends, family or people with whom you can do things together, even if it is only talking. Engaging oneself in something bigger good.
You are what you eat made an experiment with 21 twin couples (you follow four of them in the documentary). Since twins have the same DNA the researcher thought it would be easy to compare the outcome. They all went through a health test, they had the help of a personal trainer for exercises, and one twin ate meat/chicken etc and the other one ate vegan. The experiment was set for eight weeks. The first four weeks food was delivered, the last four weeks they had to cook themselves. I guess you can all guess that the vegan twin had better results than the twin eating meat.
On top of that you got a view on the chicken and pig farming in the US. I can say that while we were watching the program, I said to Martin that I think I will go vegetarian. It was so terrible the way the animals were treated, I could hardly watch it. I will probably not go totally vegetarian, I do enjoy some meat from time to time. But, I decided to eat more of vegetarian meals. I found a wonderful book: 21 Day Challenge - Go Green - How green can you be in 21 days. While writing this I am on day 7, and I must say it goes rather well. The first five days are mostly juices and smoothies to detox your body. On Saturday I could start eating light meals. The smoothies and daily detox drink are so good, and filling, so no problem keeping up with the menu. Although I must admit I have some moments of despair around early evening. Otherwise, over all, I am feeling very well. Less tired and more energy.
Are you on a healthy streak at this time of the year? Please let me know in the comments.
Modern times - artificial stress
I use an app called Dropbox and recently got a message concerning a study they have sponsored. As we all know, it is difficult to concentrate because of an information overload. You are never ‘left in peace’ while you are sitting at your computer or other it-tool. The study, conducted by Economist Impact, showed that 42% of people surveyed didn’t spend “more than an hour on productive work without interruption. The study also estimates the average knowledge worker loses more than five hundred hours to distraction each year, with 157 hours alone lost to unproductive messages from workplace chat apps - the biggest driver of lost focus overall.”
I can only agree, although I am now retired. I do have projects where I sit longer at my computer to write, and if I don’t really discipline myself I am easily distracted. When I really need to focus I use the Pomodoro method; put the timer, work for 25 minutes and relax for 5 minutes (you can also use 50/10 if you so prefer). It usually works well for me.
Hopefully, some things to consider at the beginning of 2024. I would be glad to hear how you approach health and stress this year. Leave a comment.
On my blog
I have not posted a lot lately on my blog, but managed a few posts in January.
That's very interesting -- the study on social media. I think your method makes a lot of sense for anything we either don't want to do but must or a project that is difficult to focus on. I get too wrapped up in the news or am a prisoner of the email alert. Thank goodness the only social media I do (blog and FB) is well regulated and I don't check it that often!