They are right! Rest IS best.

Hahahahaha

That's my response to myself taking 27 years to learn that full, proper rest when you are sick, actually makes you better faster.

Hahahahaa IT ACTUALLY DOES!

Wow. Some of you might be rolling your eyes, scratching your heads, thinking "JJ.... aren't you, like a fitness professional and yoga teacher? Didn't you know that? Isn't 'listening to your body' supposed to be your jam? Why is this a blog-worthy topic? Don't you owe me $5?"

And I whip my freshly trimmed fringe to the side, cough a deep chesty cough that makes strangers say "you should get that looked at" and sheepishly respond to you: "Ah, yes, listening to my body is supposed to be my jam but sometimes my body speaks in tongues I cannot understand, or misinterpret."

You know.... my body might say "give me carrots" and I hear "give me cheese"
It might say "I feel tired, let's not ride 10km to work then do a workout" and I hear "I feel tired, let's do a workout before riding 10km to work and then do a workout."
It might say "I have had a big week, I want the couch" and I hear "I've had a big week, I want an espresso martini."

Well, this week, admittedly probably from too much of the pushing and not so much listening, I was smote down with influenza. I thought it was a chest infection, and normally push through (see the theme here) a few days for it to rear its' head before calling the Doc, but as I had to work 8 days that week then go home to NZ, I didn't want to take any chances. The next day, I was hardly able to breathe, move, smile, or eat, I was that crook. A few blood tests, nasal swab and asthma tests meant the Doc said I was not to work or exercise for the rest of the week. 

I did it. What the Dr told me to. No work. No exercise, not even riding my bike. I barely left the house, instead, made a little snot den for myself where everything was within arms reach and napped for hours on end throughout the day. I was surrounded with a Narnia-snow like dusting of tissues, boxes of tablets, half empty cups of lemsip.
I rotated my dribbly pillows and coughed expressively, on the worst day some of my phlegm got on the carpet. 

Better out than in. 

During my yoga teacher training in India, some of us would fall asleep during meditation. We asked our gurus if this was bad, and how to stop it, and they simply replied that if we are falling asleep, it means we need more rest. 
***the cogs turn***the penny drops***
There, one of the greatest lessons I did open myself up to learning is to actually- as cliche as the expression has become- listen to my body, with a patient translator, rather than just misinterpreting it straight away. In the months since then, the noise of the working western world has been interfering with my body's messages a bit, not always. Being sick and actually resting (I have almost recovered and that is with 3 days full rest, normally I would be sick for a week and a half, pushing through at full speed, downing cold and flu tablets and honey ginger cayenne pepper tea.) 
This period of rest has given me a chance to reset that barometer and work my way up again. Till then, back to the snot den!

In a more lighthearted note, here is a list of famous hypochondriacs I found:

Famous Hypochondriacs

Adolf Hitler

Florence Nightingale

Andy Warhol

Charles Darwin

Hans Christian Anderson

Marcel Proust

Tennessee Williams

Howard Hughes

Hahahahahahaha (That is my laughter also being the best medicine)

Jj

Decision Fatigue

Hello dear readers. I have delayed posting the last week as I have been struggling to decide what to write about. 

In homage to young kiwi fictional hero, Ricky Baker, here is a haiku:

Decisions, decide

Can sometimes make us tired

So we choose dumb things.

Wikipedia says :

"In decision making and psychology, decision fatigue refers to the deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision making. It is now understood as one of the causes of irrational trade-offs in decision making. For instance, judges in court have been shown to make less favorable decisions later in the day than early in the day.  Decision fatigue may also lead to consumers making poor choices with their purchases."

(This is why they put the chocolates and sweets right beside the checkout- we are tired of making choices in the supermarket so get a 'treat'.)

Notably, major politicians and businessmen such as Former US President Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg have been known to reduce their everyday clothing down to one or two outfits in order to limit the number of decisions they make in a day.

- I've been there.... Sometimes a classic black activewear ensemble is the easiest/most practical/can get away with without washing for 4 days choice.

Decision fatigue is why you sometimes get worried what to order on a menu when there are a whole bunch of choices, especially with ingredients you don't understand the names of. It also leads to reduced ability to make trade offs,

Decision avoidance (" Should I go to Kate's dog's birthday or Harry's party for his newly ripened avocado? I won't go to either") 

Impulse purchases ("I couldn't find any tops I liked to wear to work so I bought this BBQ instead") 

Impaired self regulation ("my brain is so tired from all these decisions at work, I can't decide what to have for dinner so I will eat this cake and put hummus on it because at least that is kind of healthy.")

Ahhh!

How do we make sure decision fatigue doesn't wear us down to making dumb choices? Or choices which do not serve us?

Well, it depends on the person.

Some people have no issue finding what to wear in the morning, but others spend the whole night before plotting, only to find in the morning magical gremlins have come inside their clothes and stitched little bits in them to make them sit incorrectly, and as a result sit around in their bathrobe lamenting not having anything to wear, begrudgingly choose an outfit they know always looks good but wore it 3 times last week.

Some people love variety for what they have for lunch everyday and can conjure up a great idea with a whimsical whip of the sandwich press.

Others um and ahh, baffled by deciding between spinach or salad mix, mayo or aoli, tuna or salmon, multigrain or rye, so have a tomato sauce and butter sandwich because they knew it was their favourite when they were a kid and they had it everyday for their 8th year of their life. 

You get the picture.

For me, I have been extra prepared these past three weeks with a Sunday night epic meal prep sesh- taking the decision time out of the week day meals and fortunately I basically wear a uniform to work anyways.

I read in a really reliable source (I think it was cosmo) that having a 'personal uniform' means you take ditch decision fatigue by having a certain set of sweet suits- a framework that you can freestyle in. 

I read in another trusty source (I was probably men's health) that eating the same thing for breakfast everyday (provided it is healthy and not bacon wrapped waffles) is more likely to lead to maintaining stable weight. Boom.

And so I have solved my decision about deciding what to write by writing about deciding.

How's that for a nicely tied up ending!

..... quite average actually, so I shall finish with another haiku.

Thanks for reading this

decisions don't rule your day

cool stuff can, yeah man.

Jj

Words and wallowing.

“Sometimes the simplest and best use of our will is to drop it all and just walk out from under everything that is covering us, even if only for an hour or so—just walk out from under the webs we've spun, the tasks we've assumed, the problems we have to solve. They'll be there when we get back, and maybe, maybe some of them will fall apart without our worry to hold them up.” 

― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

This wonderful passage was read to me during savasana at Gertrude Yoga Studio last week. It, combined with the gentle practice, PMS and the fact that the night before as I lay in a crumpled heap I realised my mojo wasn't ENTIRELY back bought tears to my eyes.  I was going to write about that midweek meltdown but it's a little raw. 
Here I was, proclaiming to the internet that this very hungry caterpillar has formed into a butterfly, when in fact, only one wing had escaped, the rest was in the cocoon and there were still a bunch of chocolate coated teddy biscuits the very hungry caterpillar had to eat. 

In India during my yoga teacher training, I cried in savasana several times. It is a really releasing and vulnerable posture where you have to surrender, fully show up and be confronted with your tension - and that is hard. As the tears rolled down my cheeks on Thursday morning, I was really reluctant to just let myself wallow. I am one who holds energy and productivity as a badge of honour, till the day I drop, and although "self care" is on my radar (I think it is very important, especially as a freelancer) my version of it involves saunas and catch ups with friends, so I still made myself feel guilty about wanting to curl up in a ball on what was, as I later found out, Melbourne's coldest day in years!

I returned home and dissolved again to tears and tissues. After talking it out with my ever understanding boyfriend (who earlier I tried blaming but realised that was just fear talking) he advised me to just enjoy the afternoon and do something nice for myself. 

Still feeling guilty but also with a lot of determination "I MUST relax!" , I got into bed in the middle of the afternoon and watched a movie whilst drinking chilli hot chocolate. 

10 minutes in, I stopped. No one had called me yelling down the phone "BUSTED! You're a failure! Wallowing!! HA. Everything you have done until now where you have been really productive and energetic is a lie!"

Nope, that didn't happen. I kept watching the film.

30 minutes in, my flat mate returned home..... he didn't knock on my door yelling "Joana, the house is strangely quiet. You better be writing something hilarious or building an online store or something creative otherwise I can't live with someone who is such a lazy slob."

Hm, that didn't happen either.

90minutes in, my alarm went off and I went to boxing.

The people there didn't tell me my jabs were soft because I was wallowing for a while. They didn't criticise my left hook-roll-pivot-right hand- roll- righthand or my footwork because I spent my afternoon off not up-skilling. 

They didn't even tell me I had chill hot chocolate on the side of my mouth.

"Sometimes the fear of the storm is greater than the storm itself"

I heard that on my podcast this morning that Mark Nepo (the writer above) was talking about fear.... in my case, my fear of letting go, walking out on the afternoon and not giving a hoot if I got anything more done that day was holding me back from doing what I needed. The fear that things might crumble without my worry to hold them up. 

The fear of what other people would think if they found out.

And here I am, fully leaning into that fear by telling you all.

My mum always told me "feel the fear and do it anyway."

So since then I have wallowed well.....

Jj