Hugo's Blog

Just now, in the past 10 minutes, I spotted the following shared by Pieter:

Phys Ed: Why Exercise Makes You Less Anxious

His chosen snippet from this article was:

"The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm."

I find myself not wanting to choose a snippet/extract: read the whole article! This goes well with yesterday's post.

This one isn't one I've been deriving enough benefit from, but I have had the opportunity to experience its benefits on one memorable occasion: a number of months ago I took part in the Zurich triathlon, in a company team. This actually got me running during the work week. (I did the running leg.)

I generally do get out and about during weekends. Good weekends are important, but aren't what I'm talking about right now. Rather, I discovered how going for a run lifts the spirits there-and-then. In the week prior to the race, my routine was to work until a bit after 5pm (usually became 6pm), then head out for a run, say, 90 minutes (exploring Uetliberg, so it certainly wasn't all solid, boring, monotonous running - some bits were too slippery, others too steep, and others just required going slow via curiosity), then grab a shower back in the office, and head to dinner before 8pm. After dinner, more work to finish the day (another hour to two) as I usually get up so late in the morning.

I suppose this is all rather obvious, "get exercise" is an eternal truth, ain't it, but I'm just being more conscious about it now. I need to get out and get active during the work week as often as I can afford, not just on weekends. At present, I'm trying out underwater hockey twice a week, two weeks out of three (due to on-call obligations). I'm now heading to my third session, typing this on the train, on my phone. ;-) Gotta go, laterz!

Whole new continent, whole new culture, whole new community, whole new phase in life (first full-time job)...

One of the most influential things I learned in helping my survival here, is to bounce back quickly. Obviously there are times that are rough. I think I experienced the first rough bits just under a year ago. Ugly rough is when those rough bits last multiple days: a week of struggles with myself in my new context. Rough patches still happen, but the thing that makes the biggest difference is that they no longer last longer than a day!

It took some work, I recall consciously trying to swing my mindset back into positive, and feeling success every time I succeeded. Faith restored! When another rough patch hits? When doubt plagues again? Another opportunity to learn to swing back to positive. Victory was recovering in only a couple of days.

Now victory is always recovering with sleep.

It feels like I can now wake up fresh and rejuvenated every morning — no matter how insecure and down I felt the previous day. A good night's rest, or even a not-so-good-night's-rest, permits me to forget the woes of the previous day and positively recommit to the second year's work (for now I'm thinking no more than a year ahead).

Somewhat recently (could have been September?) I recall two days' roughness back-to-back, but those were still two independent days, not one big blah. Yesterday (Tuesday) was extraordinarily rough as well, but today was wonderful again. (Even if I didn't feel productive enough.)

So there, the first navel-gazing post. There might be more of these, for example on the topics of which are the things that cause these rough patches, and on the flip side, what things makes me happy (and they might not be imported). Now you know what kind of post I was talking about in the previous post. (I have not yet stopped pushing them to Facebook, but I will. At the very least, I'll be selective.)