Friday Book Report: The Distracted Mind

The Distracted Mind by Adam Gazzaley and Larry D. Rosen is a book for our times.  We are nothing if not distracted and the authors lay out the internal and external reasons why.

Of course, laying out the problem is only part of the book.  The rest is about what to do about it.  The authors outline lots of suggestions, each with an indication of what level of scientific support it had.  Some ideas just seem like reasonable hypotheses with no good studies to back them up.  Others have what they describe as “signal” levels of evidence, but still require more research to be definitive.  Only one of their suggestions made it all the way to their highest category, “prescriptive.”  It was physical exercise.

Go forth and exercise.  It will help your brain.

What time is it?

The best workout time is the time we have.  Some of us don’t struggle much with getting up a little early to pump iron.  Others of us want to strangle those people, but sometime after noon.  Some of us leave work at the end of the day ready to crush it at the gym while others would like to commune with the couch.  And then there are the lunchtime folks, who would rather lift barbells than forkfuls of salad.  Finally, there are the people who will do it whenever their best buddy can go, too, or at the times their favorite instructors have class.

All of those times are good.  Choose the one that works best.  Working out can be hard; no reason to make it harder than necessary.

Where am I?

I will admit to being slightly obsessed with proprioception.  However, in my defense, I’m seeing a lot of places lately where improved proprioception would have helped prevent injury or can help with rehabilitation.  If we don’t know where we are in space, how can we have a sense of whether we are properly aligned?  Or safe?

Think about, for example, that drunk test.  Arms out to the sides, eyes closed, can we touch our nose?  If not, we don’t know where we are in space.  We are not safe to drive.  That’s an extreme example, of course.  But consider a person with a knee problem.  Without a sense of where the knee is in space, that person can’t align the knee over the ankle, putting the knee at risk when stepping off curbs.

A lot of low back pain comes from poor posture.  Much of poor posture comes from lack of awareness—we just aren’t thinking about where we are and everything slumps.  Getting everything back in line and updating our sense of what is correct and normal can help.

Let’s tune in a little more.

Cardio outside is bonus points

Need some motivation to get in your cardio?  Here are five good reasons to do it!

1.     Burn calories.  Cardio does not mean that we can go out and eat all the cookies, but it does mean that we are burning off our healthy breakfasts.  Using up calories is an important component of both weight loss and weight maintenance.

2.     Improve metabolism.  Interval work while doing cardio ramps up our metabolisms so that we burn more calories all day long.  Who doesn’t want to burn more calories even while slumped in front of the television?

3.    Torch stress.  Cardio improves our moods and gets us out of our funks.

4.     Focus.  When we need to concentrate on an important project, we can improve our performance by getting our hearts pumping first.  (More on this on Friday, when I post my book report for the week.)

5.     Fun.  There are so many kinds of cardio that I’m sure we can all find at least one that amuses us.  (Yes, sex counts, if you aren’t just lying there thinking of England.)  Maybe, in a gym context, that means zumba or a HIIT class or treadmill intervals with our favorite disco tunes.  Whatever it is, let’s find it!

Go!

Monday Workout: Kettle Bell Extravaganza!

All kettle bell!  What’s not to like?  Three rounds.

kb swings	30
kb twists	20
kb 8s	10
kb one arm clean/press	30
kb goblet squat	20
kb overyets	10
kb overhead high knees	30
kb overhead triceps	20
kb pushups	10

Friday Book Report: Hillbilly Elegy

My favorite quarterback picked J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy as his “veteran” book for April.  It’s a memoir about growing up poor and managing to get out, but it’s also a book about a subculture and its relation to the wider culture.

The story satisfies because who doesn’t like a story about someone who works hard and beats the odds?  And it doesn’t satisfy me, at least, because it doesn’t hold out much hope that we can change the system that created the odds.  Some of that comes from Vance’s deep conviction that personal responsibility and saving love are the secrets to his success; one does not create social programs around those.  Some of it comes directly from the fact that it is a very individual story.

It’s a good, thought-provoking book.  There are parts that made me want to laugh and parts that made me want to cry.  All of it was worth reading.

Recipe for Greatness

It is possible that the perfect food is out there.  We might, by extensive research and testing, discover the ideal dietary choices that will give us the energy we need, fulfill all our nutritional requirements, and keep us lean and healthy.  In the meantime, we have to do the best we can.

As a non-nutritionist, all I can authoritatively say is that we would do well not to eat too many calories, to try to make those calories as nutrient-dense as possible, and to avoid the junk food.  Also, eating vegetables is almost always a good idea.

However, there is no reason to eat kale if we hate it.  Buying a bunch of healthy food that we allow to rot in the back of the fridge because it isn’t appealing doesn’t do anyone any good (except possibly the pizza delivery people, who profit from the failure of our best intentions).  Maybe we need to approximate our way to greatness, cutting a little sugar there and adding some broccoli here to start.  As our palates adjust and we feel better, we can switch up a little more.  It might turn out that we love quinoa (unlike everyone but me in my family!) and that our favorite canned soup now tastes way too salty.

Experiment!  It might turn out to be tasty as well as good for us.