Tag: hustle

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Everyday I’m (not) Hustling

If you don’t workout at all then this read is going to make you super happy to join the fitclub; If you’ve just started off, then maybe you can learn from my mistake; If you’re a crazy hardcore killer-of-workouts, breaker of PRs and mother of all flash diets then you definitely need to read this.

Every time I go on a holiday the first things I pack are my fitness gears. People think of vacation as a complete break but I was never able to go without workout 3 days in a row (unless I’m not well). I barely feel awake the days I stay in and don’t actively move around. There are times I question myself—Is it a craving and obsession? Am I being too compulsive about it? Or is it discipline and giving my body what it needs? There’s a thin line and I was on the wrong side of it for a few years of my life, but now I’m learning to ‘listen to my body’. (FYI I used to think people are crazed when they said that.)

Before listening to my body:
Most of my mornings would start like this “Common one more rep! You can beat the time! Go for it!! Don’t give up! Go Go Go! No pain no gain!!!! Show up everyday! Give your 100% or go home! Puke but don’t stop! Its all in the head! The body can do more than what your mind is telling you.”This and a million other fitness slogans, that are basically not worth hearing, not worth following and totally not worth living by. All about the Hustle life—over exerting my body more than its current need and capacity; going all-out crazy in every workout and gassing out, no recovery and drained of energy but still push hard, using workout to pound myself as an escape from life’s stress (BIG NO); running the mad race without a fixed goal.

Pointers on why not to hustle all the time—

  • High rate of injury
  • DOMS –Delayed onset of Muscle Soreness
  • Causes Hormonal Imbalance
  • The stress of your life has to be dealt with, an hour of escape everyday is not getting you out of the problem, it will just be an escape.
  • Without a Goal there cannot be any results, you’ll just be wasting a lot of energy.
  • To get freaked out read this – https://www.businessinsider.in/What-too-much-exercise-does-to-your-body-and-brain/articleshow/63821723.cms
  • Adrenal fatigue, Yo-yo dieting, Detox diets (links given at the end) are just a few which you have to know about even before you start the basics.

Now that I’m crazy too, telling myself to listen to my body:
There is absolutely no need to HUSTLE is what I realized! (That might be totally contrary to what you’ve almost heard everywhere.) I don’t put an alarm to start things off. I see how my body feels moving from my bed to the washroom; if I’m feeling energetic, lethargic, sleep-deprived, sore, too fit to care, or just a bundle of excuses. Then I take a call what I should do that day and just make sure I’m doing something- yoga, swimming, running, walking, weight training, group class at (The Outfit currently). Also when I have a super active day, unlike my normal desk-job hours, I make sure I’m not doing a taxing workout. Incase I have had a very lazy day I throw in an extra evening walk. Basically instead of using the tracker, fitbits and apple-watch to complete the red circle of activity, I just waste time in being aware of how my body is feeling …… (like how it’s supposed to be). Discovering the importance of rest, pacing myself and not letting the drive, drive me down to fatigue. Giving my body the time it needs to recover. Slow and consistent progress is always better than quick fixes.

So now there is going to be the famous problem of choice because this article is on the internet and so are 20 million other articles which are going to contradict this. If you google any nutrition/fitness related question on google you’re going to find both a ‘Yes’ and a ‘No’. We know about famous combos like Elixir Coconut oil vs Harvard Professor, Karin Michels and Keto fad diet vs Rujuta Diwekar, India’s leading nutrition and exercise science expert. If they all belong to the fitness industry and spring from one concept of good health, then why are facts not the same for everyone? No two trainers have the same idea on the ideal way to stay fit and no two nutritionists promote the same eating habits.

I guess no two bodies are the same and hence, it brings me to only one conclusive thought-— your body knows best. First decide what you want as a goal, or multiple goals. Then, speak to the right people, learn as much as you can, don’t be afraid to try new things and based on how you feel achieve them with a paced out and balanced approach. You don’t want to end up with any side effects. Its easy to fall prey to people pushing you and coaxing you, but it’s up to you to find your balance.

Note: You should read about LISS (that’s going to be the next ‘trend’).

Disclaimer: I’m not a Fitness GURU! I’m just sharing my personal experience on my personal blog about my not-so-personal-anymore life, so you can get some perspective!

MUST reads:

1. This article is very useful on understanding Adrenal fatigue and how you can avoid it  and the concept of metabolic reserve:) 

2. Please read this before someone misleads you!- about the YO YO effect!

3. DOMS

 

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Are you Breathing?

Einstein’s theory of relativity states that light travels in the same speed in vacuum and air. It is not affected by the speed at which the observer is travelling. Sun being a constant and the biggest source of light, we took our relative movement in comparison to the sun and invented TIME. Earth is revolving and rotating and doing its dance around the Sun and the sun stands and watches; it’s light spreading constantly in all directions. If I say I’m forty years old, relatively I have moved that many times around the Sun.

What if I did not want to measure my life based on earth’s orbital show. What if I wanted to measure my life based on other things, being completely oblivious to time? What is the one thing constant in our body? Sun is a source of energy and we have a source of energy inside us too. If sun is producing light which served as a constant and common measurement for the entire planet system, then breath is the common measurement for our body and its microorganisms; the source of life. How many breaths did you take in the last hour? I don’t think you noticed.

There are at least five or six times I catch myself not breathing, in the entire day. Mentally so occupied that my involuntary activities stop being involuntary. That’s one way my body tries to get attention— “Let’s stop breathing and see if she notices the work that goes in to keep her alive.” Does that happen to you? Or is it just me who is being played at?

There was a time when I was meditating regularly, now I’m just not doing it (No reasons attached). Back then, I had very few moments of thoughtlessness and it felt awesome. It’s like someone put me on standby. My breathing would flow effortlessly and it was just that. Existing for a few minutes, no judgement. 

What if we are born to do just that? Breathe and exist. We have all been trained to— “don’t just exist, live every second like it’s your last.” I see now why our dogs are not as stressed as we are. Hours of lounging around the living room, under the bed, under the dining table and at the door of the kitchen. We don’t do this kind of lounging. We are hustlers now, ruled by FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). 

There is cost we pay to hustle which is not being promoted as much. There is something called the flight-or-fight response and we are subconsciously always on fight mode. We are so used to putting ourselves through stressful situations that our body forgets to turn it off. The body’s response to stress is releasing hormones that help you fight; which has a tumble down effect. Increased heartbeat and breathing, rise in blood pressure and more glucose goes into the blood to release energy which helps us fight the situation. Answer to diabetes may be. 

So is meditation the answer? To escape this ‘Fire-in-the-Mountain-Run-Run-Run’ attitude to life. Hatha Yoga has taught me so much and this too — being conscious in movement and to slow down; simple. Slow is the new fast, relax is the new hustle, letting go is the new FOMO. I still remember Dj’s(My Yoga teacher) words “Flow like honey”. A simple thing like brushing your teeth, you could bring your mind completely to it. The bristles dragging on the surface of your enamel and slow it down. Or chewing consciously every bite, feeling the samosa getting crushed and making its way inside. Just like how they talk your body into relaxing in Shavasana; you need to do that with smaller activities throughout the day, everyday.

Mindfulness is just that, to slow down life and let seconds blur out into minutes, minutes into hours. Going about your day mindfully will improve your concentration, save your brain from burning out, help you make better decisions and your reflexes will be better, you will also have more reaction time to any given situation.

While for the sages in mountains, who have given up worldly ways of living, days don’t even measure into hours. They are not dependant on the earth dancing around the sun. Their mind is focusing on the breath and its flow. In a world without ‘Time’ a recipe would instruct‘time-taken’as 79 breaths; the delivery will be done in 300 breaths and you have been using your phone for 154960 breaths. Would that make you more conscious of the way you want to use your breaths? Being unaware of our last breath, makes it even more important to salvage each one of them. We may not be ready to leave for the mountains yet, till then we should stop glorifying being busy and keep checking on ourselves ‘am I breathing?’ 

Sometimes you should just be:

Evdy Bawdy Chillax Maan

I’m not saying meditation can now be evaded. We may not be able to sit and do it everyday, as diligently, so instead of chasing perfection just slow down. I even came across an exercise (picture) you can do in between work. It’s very effective and it’s like a quick charging when your battery is about to die. 

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Time out

I have so many thoughts playing on my head as to what I need to do next. “You cannot ‘not-be-working’”, “You are wasting time”, “People are going to ask you what’s next and you need to know what to say”, “Do you really need this?” and “Trust me it will do you good”. Majority of them are just getting me anxious for being on a break. 

Have you heard of the concept of break year? So I have a few friends who have taken a break year or break months, where they are not working anymore, not studying and have nothing in mind for the present. I am on a break period and its been two weeks. The anxiety could be lethal. I’m scared to admit that I’m taking a break. The whole purpose of it, being a break, is defeated because mentally I’m just constantly fretting.

@buddhadoodles on Instagram

(A deep breath in, sigh)

If you can sense the millionth of a milli second and have control of what you think, see, do, speak, move, anything that flows or moves in that split of time; (sort of like Matrix) what would you want to do? What is it you would want to spend your time doing if you had just that much time left with you? Its tough to say what I would want to do but I know exactly the things I would not want to be doing. Not using my phone tops the list, rather choose doing nothing.

Productivity is so drilled into us; we need to prove we are busy all the time. We are taught the concept of time management, and the more work we get done in the twenty-four hours, the better we are considered. Have you heard songs where they build up and then suddenly break it off to a complete rest for a beat and play again. If you play a musical instrument, you would know that the rest is equally important if not more. Going with the beats, placing the notes where the fall and rest when we don’t play a note. Even the notations have a sign for rest. 

I’m working on a new vegetable garden and I want to share something I learnt about the soil in agriculture. You plough the land, sow the seeds, let it go through the process and reap the harvest. For the next sowing season, you have to let the soil rest. The longer the rest the better for the soil to build up good bacteria and micro organisms, and the richer the soil. Nature has many things to teach us if we look closely. Being busy depletes us of our creative energy, passion, the drive, proactive attitude; it all gets used up to grow our plants. Once we reap some benefit, we have to get back all these good bacteria and micro organisms, which comes back with good rest. 

In school we always got a Christmas break and Summer holidays. No work during these breaks. Once you’re in the “Corporate world” the golden word is “Hustle”. What about the maximum stress that a human mind can be subjected to? Doctors will prescribe you drugs, and others- workout, diets and innumerable suggestions for stress related disorders. I thought prevention was better than cure. I would love to see people understand work management and rest management, leisure being the tougher one to manage in a fast paced environment.

I had asked a friend once, when we met, “What are you doing now?” and I was quite surprised when she confidently said “Nothing!”. Now I clearly understand why she respected what she was doing even if no one else was and she wasn’t afraid of saying it out loud. “An Idle mind is the devil’s playground” heard that one. Busy minds don’t give new ideas, may be devil’s playground is a good thing after all. Its only when we stop and breathe, in our moments of relaxation, we get all the good insights. For a muscle to grow after tearing, for the dough to rise once kneaded, for stains to be removed through soaking, and for human minds to think in its full potential; REST.

If by Rudyard Kipling: A poem I want to live by