Best Self

A Quick, Breathless Workout

Posted on by Julie Pearson

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m trying to exercise more. It can be really tough to carve out enough time for a solid workout. If you’re like me, living an active lifestyle needs to be efficient. TV doesn’t binge-watch itself, after all.

Yesterday, I biked to the neighborhood ice cream place with my roommates (I follow my own advice). It was a nice day, and a short ride of about a mile each way. Biking is great exercise, but I abandoned it when I was ten – it seemed too much like a sport and I didn’t like those. I’m just getting back into it, and this was my first ride in traffic. Ever. What a rush! Cars are so much larger and faster than bikes!

I just can’t wait to get back on this bike.

The hills in my neighborhood helped to keep the short ride challenging. And the more cars passed by me as I rode, the more my heart rate accelerated. Wrangling left turns made all my muscles tighten up so that using my legs was nearly impossible. While trying to get across a busy street on a short green light, my vision turned blurry and reality started to feel hazy. Before I knew it, my breath had quickened and I was having a panic attack, right in the middle of my workout! What a happenstance!

The more nervous I got around the cars, the more embarrassed I got at being nervous – which just made my breathing more shallow. Better still, the very last hill by my house was enormous. I thought my legs were going to fall off as I desperately tried to take in enough oxygen to keep pedaling. What an opportunity.

Afterwards, I wobbled inside and hyperventilated into the couch. My lungs felt like they were going to explode – the surest sign that I exercised effectively. I’ve never felt so physically and emotionally spent in such a short period of time. Plus, I now know what it’s like to be so shell-shocked you can’t taste ice cream. That sounds like a diet tip to me!

So if you need an efficient way to get that heart pumping really, really fast, be like me and be very anxious!😬 🚴

 

Bedtime Routine: Sit in Front of as Many Screens as Possible

Posted on by Julie Pearson

IMG_1051edit2

This is what it looks like when I sleep.

For most people, the night is reserved for sleeping, and that’s a terrible waste of time. Whether you go to bed late or really late, make the most of that last hour of awakeness so you can rest easy/never.

When it’s time to wind down for the night, get in bed and boot up all your screens at once. No matter how unproductive you were during the day, there’s plenty of time to get things done in the last hour before you grudgingly turn out the lights.

There are lots of ways to do this. I like to play cell phone games while I watch TV on my laptop, but I think you can do better than that. If you have a gaming system and a 47″ plasma screen, now’s the time to fire it up. If not, maybe you have an iPad? A Surface?An Apple Watch? The key here is quantity.

I like to get in bed with my screens, letting the cool blue light hypnotize me until I’m stuck in a state between waking and sleep. It helps if I haven’t brushed my teeth yet, because the dread of getting up to do that will keep me in front of the screens at least 30% longer. You might find that something else works better for you. The key here is general discomfort.

When I finally do turn out the lights, I find myself feeling wired for no reason. Immediately, all the thoughts flood back into my head as soon as I’m not completely numb anymore. You might fall asleep immediately, but studies show that’s unlikely. You do you, though. They key here is regretting it all in the morning.

What screens do you like to use before bed? Tell me in the comments! 🙂

Exercise Better: Find Your True Motivation

Posted on by Julie Pearson

IMG_0980edit

I have a hard time with working out. Gyms make me anxious, yoga class makes me more anxious, and I hate sports. But I don’t like feeling lethargic and imagining my arteries turning into marshmallow fluff, so I’ve been trying to start a regular exercise practice.

Walking is a great workout that doesn’t feel like “exercise” (or burn that many calories). But finding the motivation to go for a walk can be difficult. Sitting is just easier. 

Bribe yourself to go for a walk by going to get a fun snack. I walked to Scoops for ice cream. I walked to Cafe Tropical to get a truly unreasonable piece of apple pie (fact: the tirimisu is better). Walking is good. Dessert is delicious. I win double. And you can too! You don’t have to walk that far to justify consuming three times the calories you burned, and you can ride that high – and sugar crash – for days.

It might look like a cop out, but I guarantee it will feel like a sweet success 🙂

4 Things I Love (Even Though I Don’t Feel Like It)

Posted on by Julie Pearson

I’m having a terrible week! But that doesn’t absolve me from loving stuff. Because I am a lifestyle blogger, and thus, I am obligated to influence the masses.

  1. Cold Brew Coffee. I usually like my coffee like I don’t like my weather: hot. But my friend Will started a cold brew coffee company, and I’m pretty into this whole Cold Bruja Coffee thing. I normally think of iced coffee as a thing to drink in the sunshine on a patio, but I drank this one in bed on Saturday morning while trying to physically meld with my comforter. Is getting out of bed even worth it oops I mean necessary anymore? Also there’s a fun blurb about a witch on the bottle!
  2. Working Behind a Big Desk. My job requires so much sitting that most of my coworkers don’t even know I have legs. Usually this is frustrating and I know it dooms me to die an early death. But yesterday, I was eating the remains of a cold breakfast sandwich and I spilled some chipotle mayo on my sweater. The horror! But with a big desk hiding my whole body and personage, nobody could tell.
  3. Using a Machete. There’s a drought in California, which absolves us of all responsibility for taking care of our lawn we’ve decided. Eventually though, the grass gets too tall to walk through, and my roommate thought a machete was the best way to handle that. I took a turn at lawn macheteing this weekend, and it was a great way to exorcise some demons before I got too tired and collapsed into a crying puddle on the couch. Cathartic!
  4. Night French Toast. On Sunday night I felt so dissatisfied with everything around me and within me, that the only thing that could possibly fix it was to make French toast at 10pm. I don’t know why. I don’t make the rules, I just crack eggs for them. But something about watching maple syrup congeal on a spongey piece of bread really calmed me, and as the one piece of toast cooled too fast while the other one was still cooking, making it impossible to eat both pieces in a neat stack, the chaotic nature of life made sense in a new way. Yum 🙂

Just Be Better: Positive Reframing

Posted on by Julie Pearson

IMAG3183edit2

It’s St. Patrick’s Day and everyone in the office is asking me “Where’s your green?” They have a lot of nerve, considering I got out of bed at 7:07 this morning, successfully put clothes on my body, and brought said body to the bus stop on time. I was feeling grumpy about being questioned for the one thing I hadn’t done, but then I realized my negativity was getting in the way. I was thinking about it all wrong.

I deserve credit for all the things I DID do.

  • I only needed five alarms to get out of bed.
  • I ate a cupcake at 8am, but I also had a bowl of oatmeal.
  • I didn’t forget to zip the side of my shirt for the entire day, letting only the cooperation of a sweater keep me from exposing myself to everyone, unlike last week.

Reframe Your Situation

When I was looking at my day through one lens – not wearing green – I had failed. But when I pulled back and refocused, I saw all the things I was doing right, and it turns out I’m doing pretty gosh darn great.

So consider this: are you thinking negatively about something because you can’t see the whole picture? Once I looked at things differently, I felt a lot better

In fact, I felt good enough to have another breakfast cupcake. 🍀

 

Achieve Your Goals: Reward Your Progress

Posted on by Julie Pearson

IMG_0757edit.jpg

We all have goals we’re trying to achieve, and it can be hard to commit to making progress on them. For example, my goal right now is to get more sleep – I’ve been getting headaches and feeling dizzy a lot, so I’m finally compelled to try out basic healthy habits. The problem is, I work at 8am and I love staying up late (I become my best self after midnight). It’s been an uphill battle, but finally this week, I went to bed before midnight three nights in a row! Great, right?

But don’t forget: if you want to stick to your goals, it’s important to celebrate small milestones by tanking all the progress you’ve made.

That’s right! After feeling well-rested and healthier for three full days, I rewarded myself by staying up until 1:45 last night. It felt great to indulge a little bit and completely undo the healthy pattern I’d just barely started to develop. It’s just the kind of reinforcement that will make it even harder to achieve what I set out to do, and it felt great. And then, the next morning, awful.

It’s 11:44 now and here I am, back at square one. 🙂