Just read a fascinating New York Times article about how humans evolved as excellent barefoot distance runners.
The conventional logic is that humans are physically inferior to most wild animals and that it's our advanced brains and community organization that helped us thrive. That never felt like the whole picture to me, especially given how harshly competitive survival can be in nature. I grew up hunting, and I'm not sure how many of us could catch our dinners without firearms. This running article snapped something into place for me. The idea that humans possess at least a few physical superiorities--perhaps even more important attributes than being fast and having big claws--makes a lot of sense.
In fact, the NYT article didn't mention one of the most important factors of all for humans being built for distance: a four-valve heart. Having a bigger, more efficient, more powerful heart helps us run longer distances than most any other animal.
If humans evolved running, then perhaps running is crucial to maintaining optimum health. Proper running form prevents injury and pain, and it promotes a strong and healthy body. Vibrant health is another way of describing youthfulness and longevity. Longevity is another word for sustainability. We're all learning--or relearning in some cases--how to live longer lives in happier communities with less footprint on the environment. Barefoot running certainly leaves a smaller footprint.
The jury's still out, however, on barefoot rock climbing. I'll let you know how that goes. :)
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
You Load 16 Tons and What Do You Get?
Another day older and deeper in debt. "Tennessee" Earnie Ford would probably agree with an article I just read in the US News and World Report about a study of how losing your job, having your job security threatened, or even having a secure but bad job can increase your stress and consequently decrease your lifespan. Kind of ties in with my prior post. Here's the link:
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2009/02/20/is-your-job-killing-you-how-work-influences-longevity.html
Fortunately, I'm self-employed, and writing blog posts while in my PJs is more or less my job. I think I'm covered in the low-stress department, as long as I can keep paying my bills and avoid working in coal mines.
http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2009/02/20/is-your-job-killing-you-how-work-influences-longevity.html
Fortunately, I'm self-employed, and writing blog posts while in my PJs is more or less my job. I think I'm covered in the low-stress department, as long as I can keep paying my bills and avoid working in coal mines.
Dancing the Night (and My Health) Away
Last weekend, I had friends in town, and we ended up staying up late Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. We had a lot of fun, but it also ran down my batteries quite a bit. Add that to my already stressed out state, and, natch, I came down with a cold this week. I chalk this up as more anecdotal evidence supporting my theory that both stress and insufficient sleep weaken the immune system and, thus, age us faster. In my case, a pathogen flourished. In fact, I can look back at every single cold or flu I've had in the past several years and see that they were all preceded by extra stress, overworking and burnout, lack of exercise, less nutritious diet, and/or missed sleep.
Incidentally, I've found that the best cure for the common cold is taking a couple days off from work, getting lots of sleep, and drinking prodigious amounts of orange juice. It seems that maintaining optimal health isn't such a mystery after all. Why is it that we so often neglect to do the simple things that we know will keep us healthy? I think that's the basis of my longevity experiment and this whole blog--that optimal health and longevity are very simple, straightforward, and easy to attain. We just have to turn a few well-known but oft-ignored precepts into permanent habits through conscious and willful action. Well, that's the theory anyway. We'll see how it goes.
Incidentally, I've found that the best cure for the common cold is taking a couple days off from work, getting lots of sleep, and drinking prodigious amounts of orange juice. It seems that maintaining optimal health isn't such a mystery after all. Why is it that we so often neglect to do the simple things that we know will keep us healthy? I think that's the basis of my longevity experiment and this whole blog--that optimal health and longevity are very simple, straightforward, and easy to attain. We just have to turn a few well-known but oft-ignored precepts into permanent habits through conscious and willful action. Well, that's the theory anyway. We'll see how it goes.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Balls, Bones, and Bullets
Last night, I had two really disturbing dreams. In the first, I dreamt that I was diagnosed with testicular cancer and leukemia. A double whammy. I had to make the decision as to whether I would start chemo right away or wait a month or two and give all my alternative health methodologies and theories a try. You know, walk the walk and all that. Then I woke up and had to pee.
I went back to bed and promptly had another dream where I was in an Old West Hatfield-and-McCoy type of feud, though I didn't particularly want to be on either side. We ended up in a big shootout, and my side retreated to an old cabin. Then we ran out of bullets and realized that the guys outside shooting at us would soon realize this and come in and shoot us, or else just set the cabin on fire and burn us out. Then I woke up to pee again. Saved by the bladder twice in one night. Guess that's another upside to being so well hydrated.
I really got to thinking about this today, especially in light of Wednesday's financial death probe. Two consecutive dreams in which I was effectively handed a death sentence...what is my id trying to tell me here? Maybe I really should try to work that one out. Get out the Martha Beck books or something. Or maybe it was just something I ate.
I went back to bed and promptly had another dream where I was in an Old West Hatfield-and-McCoy type of feud, though I didn't particularly want to be on either side. We ended up in a big shootout, and my side retreated to an old cabin. Then we ran out of bullets and realized that the guys outside shooting at us would soon realize this and come in and shoot us, or else just set the cabin on fire and burn us out. Then I woke up to pee again. Saved by the bladder twice in one night. Guess that's another upside to being so well hydrated.
I really got to thinking about this today, especially in light of Wednesday's financial death probe. Two consecutive dreams in which I was effectively handed a death sentence...what is my id trying to tell me here? Maybe I really should try to work that one out. Get out the Martha Beck books or something. Or maybe it was just something I ate.
Fake Heart Attack, The Puppy Channel, & The World's Smartest Fortune Cookie
I almost died on Wednesday. Well, not completely died, as in all the way dead, but I did get really worried that maybe I was about to die. I told you in the first post that I'd share some colossal failures, so here's the story.
On Wednesday, I had my meeting of creditors (i.e. court date) for my bankruptcy that I filed in January (long story for another day, but the short version is that I had a mortgage, real estate, and development company that crashed and burned big time recently). My attorney thought it would be an open and shut case with a five minute proceeding. Not so much. An attorney for one of my creditors showed up and proceeded to grill me for the better part of a half an hour. He tried to cast doubt on my character, which appeared to work on the trustee (i.e. the judge-like lady who runs the show for a bankruptcy proceeding), at least for awhile anyway. She started probing a lot deeper into my case too, and decided "we'll just have to research these things a bit more" instead of closing the file. In the end, they both seemed to realize that I had done nothing wrong other than failing my real estate and finance businesses in a very bad market. Nonetheless, I was on the hot seat, in front of a roomful of maybe 50 or 75 strangers, answering very difficult questions for well over a half hour. Given that I pride myself on my integrity and usually aim to please to a fault, this was extra uncomfortable for me.
This story is pertinent to my health and thus, this blog, because while I was being questioned, my heartbeat started doing baaaaaad things, man. Very bad things. It skipped lots of beats. It sped way up. It fluttered. It grew weak. It pounded furiously. The lubs separated from the dubs, sometimes skipping the dubs altogether. I could actually feel and hear all this beating and not-beating as I sat up there in my uncomfortable little chair. Oddly, it occurred to me while I was defending myself up there, that my heartbeat reminded me of the drums in a math rock band. Which is not a good thing, even though I do like math rock.
The scary part is that it didn't return to normal after I left court. I went home, put on PJs, lay down on the couch in the dark, and tried to calm my mind. Several hours went by, and I thought perhaps I was dying. My dad died of a heart attack at 55. My grandpa at 62. A great uncle at 48. I have a big barrel chest like they did. It's not totally unheard of for someone to have a heart attack at 32, especially not for someone with my family history. Thoughts of dying superseded my thoughts of bankruptcy court, which was a dubious silver lining at best. In fact, I even briefly wondered if I had sealed my ironic early death fate by starting a blog devoted to longevity.
After awhile, it occurred to me that maybe I should drive to the emergency room. But that would most certainly cost me a lot of money, insurance coverage notwithstanding, and it's not like I've got big piles of extra cash lying around. I just filed bankruptcy, remember? So I decided on the next best thing: I called my friend Kendall. Kendall is a 23 year old nurse who had heart surgery last year due to an irregular heartbeat. I figured she'd know what to do.
And she did. Once she found out that I wasn't having chest pains, my limbs weren't numb, and that I could breathe just fine, she figured that more than likely I was just experiencing premature ventricular contractions, or PVCs. Fortunately, PVCs are often caused by stress or anxiety, are usually harmless, and rarely need treatment. I just needed to get control of my mind and chill the heck out. I tried to consciously return my heartbeats back to normal, which seemed to help. I meditated and focused on my breathing, which helped a lot. Jennie, my roommate, finally got off work, came home, and gave me a face message, which was AWESOME regardless of whether it helped or not (it did). And after awhile, my heart beat finally returned back to normal.
For the past three days, every time I think about court, or dying, or finances, or even just work in general, my heart goes all crazy again. Fortunately, I can calm it down again by thinking happy thoughts, watching The Puppy Channel or CommunityChannel YouTube videos, and stopping work. I guess I hadn't realized how close to the edge I've been with all the stress in my life recently. Between failing businesses; trying to create/acquire a new income source; filing bankruptcy; and probably a lot more stuff I can't think of at the moment, I'm pretty far off the charts for unhealthy levels of stress.
I know it may sound cheesey, but I'm actually seeing this whole crisis as an opportunity. Sometimes life sucks. I'm sure it will again many times in the future. I can see how important it is to control my thinking and consciously keep my stress levels low. Partly because I'll have to deal with stress again in the future, and if I'm not in charge of my mind, I'll damage my body badly, possibly irreparably. And partly because if stress has this bad of an effect in large amounts, it probably still has a deleterious effect on our bodies even in small amounts--possibly even more so considering that a constant flow of stress every day never gives our bodies and immune systems a chance to rest. I can see how easily 20 or 40 or 80 years of constant stress will age our bodies in myriad ways.
The opportunity for me is that now I know all this from firsthand experience. I'm a thickheaded person sometimes, often having to learn everything the hard way, but I am learning. I'm learning at a relatively young age how to control my thoughts, lower my stress levels, and consciously control my body systems to be healthier and more balanced. Better to learn this now than by actually having a fatal heart attack in 20 years. It didn't kill me, so I guess I'm stronger now? I once read a different zen koan-ish proverb, probably in a fortune cookie, that went something like this: "One disease, long life. No disease, short life." Nah, who am I kidding...fortune cookies are never that wise or furtune-y. I probably made it up.
On Wednesday, I had my meeting of creditors (i.e. court date) for my bankruptcy that I filed in January (long story for another day, but the short version is that I had a mortgage, real estate, and development company that crashed and burned big time recently). My attorney thought it would be an open and shut case with a five minute proceeding. Not so much. An attorney for one of my creditors showed up and proceeded to grill me for the better part of a half an hour. He tried to cast doubt on my character, which appeared to work on the trustee (i.e. the judge-like lady who runs the show for a bankruptcy proceeding), at least for awhile anyway. She started probing a lot deeper into my case too, and decided "we'll just have to research these things a bit more" instead of closing the file. In the end, they both seemed to realize that I had done nothing wrong other than failing my real estate and finance businesses in a very bad market. Nonetheless, I was on the hot seat, in front of a roomful of maybe 50 or 75 strangers, answering very difficult questions for well over a half hour. Given that I pride myself on my integrity and usually aim to please to a fault, this was extra uncomfortable for me.
This story is pertinent to my health and thus, this blog, because while I was being questioned, my heartbeat started doing baaaaaad things, man. Very bad things. It skipped lots of beats. It sped way up. It fluttered. It grew weak. It pounded furiously. The lubs separated from the dubs, sometimes skipping the dubs altogether. I could actually feel and hear all this beating and not-beating as I sat up there in my uncomfortable little chair. Oddly, it occurred to me while I was defending myself up there, that my heartbeat reminded me of the drums in a math rock band. Which is not a good thing, even though I do like math rock.
The scary part is that it didn't return to normal after I left court. I went home, put on PJs, lay down on the couch in the dark, and tried to calm my mind. Several hours went by, and I thought perhaps I was dying. My dad died of a heart attack at 55. My grandpa at 62. A great uncle at 48. I have a big barrel chest like they did. It's not totally unheard of for someone to have a heart attack at 32, especially not for someone with my family history. Thoughts of dying superseded my thoughts of bankruptcy court, which was a dubious silver lining at best. In fact, I even briefly wondered if I had sealed my ironic early death fate by starting a blog devoted to longevity.
After awhile, it occurred to me that maybe I should drive to the emergency room. But that would most certainly cost me a lot of money, insurance coverage notwithstanding, and it's not like I've got big piles of extra cash lying around. I just filed bankruptcy, remember? So I decided on the next best thing: I called my friend Kendall. Kendall is a 23 year old nurse who had heart surgery last year due to an irregular heartbeat. I figured she'd know what to do.
And she did. Once she found out that I wasn't having chest pains, my limbs weren't numb, and that I could breathe just fine, she figured that more than likely I was just experiencing premature ventricular contractions, or PVCs. Fortunately, PVCs are often caused by stress or anxiety, are usually harmless, and rarely need treatment. I just needed to get control of my mind and chill the heck out. I tried to consciously return my heartbeats back to normal, which seemed to help. I meditated and focused on my breathing, which helped a lot. Jennie, my roommate, finally got off work, came home, and gave me a face message, which was AWESOME regardless of whether it helped or not (it did). And after awhile, my heart beat finally returned back to normal.
For the past three days, every time I think about court, or dying, or finances, or even just work in general, my heart goes all crazy again. Fortunately, I can calm it down again by thinking happy thoughts, watching The Puppy Channel or CommunityChannel YouTube videos, and stopping work. I guess I hadn't realized how close to the edge I've been with all the stress in my life recently. Between failing businesses; trying to create/acquire a new income source; filing bankruptcy; and probably a lot more stuff I can't think of at the moment, I'm pretty far off the charts for unhealthy levels of stress.
I know it may sound cheesey, but I'm actually seeing this whole crisis as an opportunity. Sometimes life sucks. I'm sure it will again many times in the future. I can see how important it is to control my thinking and consciously keep my stress levels low. Partly because I'll have to deal with stress again in the future, and if I'm not in charge of my mind, I'll damage my body badly, possibly irreparably. And partly because if stress has this bad of an effect in large amounts, it probably still has a deleterious effect on our bodies even in small amounts--possibly even more so considering that a constant flow of stress every day never gives our bodies and immune systems a chance to rest. I can see how easily 20 or 40 or 80 years of constant stress will age our bodies in myriad ways.
The opportunity for me is that now I know all this from firsthand experience. I'm a thickheaded person sometimes, often having to learn everything the hard way, but I am learning. I'm learning at a relatively young age how to control my thoughts, lower my stress levels, and consciously control my body systems to be healthier and more balanced. Better to learn this now than by actually having a fatal heart attack in 20 years. It didn't kill me, so I guess I'm stronger now? I once read a different zen koan-ish proverb, probably in a fortune cookie, that went something like this: "One disease, long life. No disease, short life." Nah, who am I kidding...fortune cookies are never that wise or furtune-y. I probably made it up.
Friday, February 13, 2009
My Eyes Will Smolder
Just watched Twilight tonight, and finished the book yesterday. Yes, it's annoying and not that well-written. Yes, it's pretty un-feminist. Yes, it's addicting like crack, or maybe I should say "my own personal brand of heroin." Anyway, my review of the book and movie is not the point of this post. I'd rather examine the central question of the series, and the question most Twilight readers/viewers come to, which is: would you become a vampire?
I'm kind of torn. On the one hand, I'd get to live forever (as long as another vampire doesn't tear off my head and set me on fire). On the other hand, I don't like being cold. The thought of not having a heartbeat really creeps me out. I like my heartbeat. I also wouldn't want to have to eat that much meat, even if I could abstain from human blood and be a "vegetarian" vampire and just eat animals, like Edward and the gang do, though I could deal if I had to. Plus, as you've probably gathered if you know me at all, I don't believe I need to be a mythical creature in order to live forever. I'm convinced I can do that on my own.
So, is "no" my final answer? No, actually, it isn't. I would become a vampire, because of all the superpowers. Being that strong, fast, invincible, infinitely attractive, and psychic sounds pretty rad. A vampire's liiiiffffeee fooooorrrrr mmmeeeeeeeee.
I'm kind of torn. On the one hand, I'd get to live forever (as long as another vampire doesn't tear off my head and set me on fire). On the other hand, I don't like being cold. The thought of not having a heartbeat really creeps me out. I like my heartbeat. I also wouldn't want to have to eat that much meat, even if I could abstain from human blood and be a "vegetarian" vampire and just eat animals, like Edward and the gang do, though I could deal if I had to. Plus, as you've probably gathered if you know me at all, I don't believe I need to be a mythical creature in order to live forever. I'm convinced I can do that on my own.
So, is "no" my final answer? No, actually, it isn't. I would become a vampire, because of all the superpowers. Being that strong, fast, invincible, infinitely attractive, and psychic sounds pretty rad. A vampire's liiiiffffeee fooooorrrrr mmmeeeeeeeee.
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