Tag: health

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Wash Your Hands

Well, since it’s Health and Wellness Monday, I felt like I couldn’t skip the opportunity to tell you to wash your hands and to discuss current events.  Even though I don’t want to. I mean, this is pretty crazy guys. The word unprecedented has been going around, I certainly feel like it is. On so many levels – there is the virus itself, the public policy response, the social impact, and the unforeseen long-term economic impact.

I’m not an expert on any of these areas and I don’t want to potentially spread any misinformation, but I would like to take this opportunity to contemplate these four points. Maybe you have some better information that you can share with me in the comments.

The Virus

COVID-19 is a new strain of coronavirus that was unknown before the outbreak in China in December 2019. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), coronaviruses (CoV):

… are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV).

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a new strain that was discovered in 2019 and has not been previously identified in humans.

Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people.  Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.

https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus

The risk of catching COVID-19 is still low for most people in most locations. Illness due to COVID-19 infection is generally mild, especially for children and young adults. Once someone catches a virus, their body will create antibodies and they won’t be as susceptible to the same illness again.

Most estimates of the incubation period for COVID-19 range from 1-14 days, most commonly around 5 days. It is not certain how long the virus that causes COVID-19 survives on surfaces, but it seems to behave like other coronaviruses (a few hours up to several days).

The issue with this virus is that about 1 in every 5 people who catch it will become seriously ill and need hospital care. Older persons and persons with pre-existing medical conditions (such as high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, cancer or diabetes) appear to develop serious illness more often than others.

The virus that causes COVID-19 and the one that caused the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 are related to each other genetically, but the diseases they cause are quite different. SARS was more deadly but much less infectious than COVID-19. There have been no outbreaks of SARS anywhere in the world since 2003. I think this is notable because it implies that this will probably be a similarly short-term world health concern.

Public Policy Response

Let’s agree to that the ultimate objective of the public policy response to the COVID-19 outbreak is intended as a means to curb the spread of the virus in order to protect those most vulnerable to serious illness. Based on various things I’ve read, it seems like everyone will probably catch this, not everyone will get very sick, but those who are susceptible will get seriously ill.

The capacity of the healthcare system is limited, so the best option is to take measures to slow the spread of the virus so that there are hopefully fewer seriously ill people at any given time in an attempt to not overwhelm the healthcare system.

I’m not a public health authority by any means, I am not even a public health amateur. That being said, I am surprised by the delay and haphazard implementation of institutional response. Last week, when the ballet performance that I was planning to attend was canceled, professional sports were still playing to stadiums and arenas full of thousands of people.

As I write this, it’s as if the whole world is canceled – including entire seasons of various sports, events ranging from Coachella to the meetings of my Toastmaster’s club; schools are closed, so are museums and performing arts venues.

Social Impact

This leads to the social impact. I really wonder how the crazy grocery shopping makes any sense in terms of “social distancing.” If you are really worried about exposure, why do you have to go to the store to buy ALL THE FOOD right this moment?  When everyone else is as well. Everyone is in a hurry to get all the stuff that they need to lock themselves in their house for the next month. It strikes me as an unfortunate time to cultivate an “us against them” mentality.

This morning, as I was walking in my neighborhood, I was crossing the street when a mom and her little boy were approaching the corner.  Generally, my neighbors are friendly, and it is common to great people with a smile and a “hello.” This time was different. She not only glared at me, but she turned her back as if to shield her son from me.  Keep in mind, I was probably 20 feet away from them as I passed.

Are we going to start viewing everyone as a potential threat?  I hope not. I hope that we will remember that most of us will probably get sick, but the reason that we are practicing “social distancing” is to help the healthcare system retain its capability to provide services for those of us who have a severe response to the virus.

Long-term Economic Impact

This is what really concerns me.  Let’s say that everyone stays home for the next three, four, five, eight weeks. Healthcare organizations get a grip on things and life gets back to normal. There are still going to be economic repercussions that we can’t begin to imagine.

Here’s an example: I had some freelance work lined up for next week. It was a small project, everything is done remotely, no big deal. There is no reason that what is going on should affect this job, right?  Not so fast my friend. The publication is distributed as part of an event, which was canceled.  So, no need to worry about the print deadline. Will they reschedule the event?  Probably.  Will they still want my help on the publication?  Maybe, maybe not. Maybe now they have the time to do the work that they were going to outsource to me themselves.  I would if I was them.

That is just one example of the kinds of economic ripples I think we are going to be seeing. I don’t imagine that the majority of individuals or organizations who are having their income stream disrupted have 30, 60, 90 days of resources available. I think we are going to see all sorts of domino effects in terms of the economy in the near future.

Wrapping Up

So those are the sorts of things that I have been thinking about in terms of the current situation.

As someone who has been practicing social distancing for a while, I would like to encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to do something that you haven’t felt like you have time for in your normal life.  If you are working from home, think of the time that you aren’t spending commuting as a gift. Don’t spend your energy reading all of the things about the pandemic or binging on reality TV. Do one of those things from your “if only” pile.  Read that stack of books, clean you closets, learn about astrology or enneagrams or Norse mythology, garden, meditate, make something, write something. If you want to write a guest post for this blog, let me know.

Wash your hands, avoid touching your face, and don’t forget to be compassionate toward your fellow humans. We’re all in this together.

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In last week’s ballet review, I found an opportunity to bring up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When I was thinking about what to post this week, I came across a draft about Maslow’s hierarchy that I had started a while ago.  Seems like the perfect time to dive in, wouldn’t you agree?

Abraham Maslow was a 20th-century American psychologist. He was one of the fathers of the humanistic psychology paradigm, which centers the concept of self.  The individual perceives the world according to their own experiences and this shapes their personality and behavior. For Maslow, foundational needs must be satisfied before an individual can seek to fulfill higher levels of existence.

MaslowsHierarchyOfNeeds.svg
By FireflySixtySeven – Own work using Inkscape, based on Maslow’s paper, A Theory of Human Motivation., CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

The bottom tier of Maslow’s hierarchy is physiological needs – food and shelter, followed by safety, then love and belonging (personal relationships, sense of community, and affiliation with both formal and informal social groups). Esteem, the fourth level in the hierarchy has to do with self-respect and self-confidence as well as the desire to be valued and recognized by others.

The hierarchy is not rigid, one does not need to be completely fulfilled one tier in order to move on to the next level. It is also not absolute – someone may be at the point at which they are striving to fulfill their self-actualization needs and may experience a deficiency in their love/belonging or even physiological needs.

The top tier if Maslow’s hierarchy is self-actualization. This has to do with striving to achieve our potential and satisfying out creative goals. For Maslow, self-actualization is a state in which one is able to transcend ego (this reminds me of our chakra series). It is an interesting paradox.

Scott Barry Kaufman, a professor at Columbia University has revisited and been researching Maslow’s concept of self-actualization.  On his “about” page, I noticed that he refers to his “past life” which made me smile, because I have taken to speaking about the years that I was dancing as my past life.

You can take Dr. Kaufman’s Characteristics of Self-Actualization test (in case you don’t like my hyperlinks, here is the url: https://www.scottbarrykaufman.com/characteristics-of-self-actualization-scale/). I mean, who doesn’t love a good internet personality test? This one is free and anonymous; you don’t have to put in your email address to get the results or anything. I really liked what the questions made me think about.

For Dr. Kaufman, the characteristics of self-actualization are:

  1. Continued freshness of appreciation
  2. Acceptance
  3. Authenticity
  4. Equanimity
  5. Purpose
  6. Efficient perception of reality
  7. Humanitarianism
  8. Peak experiences
  9. Good moral intuition
  10. Creative spirit

You don’t have to have a high score on most (or even many) of these characteristics to be self-actualized.  Different things are more or less important to different people, I can think of lots of people (or maybe it’s just me) who aren’t even interested in having an efficient perception of reality. But someone who scores low on all of these characteristics may be functioning in the little hunger zone, rather than taking advantage of an opportunity to address their big hunger.

Anyway, I thought this was something fun to think about on a Monday.

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Practicing Gratitude

rainbow

How was your Thanksgiving?  I hope that in addition to enjoying food, friends, and family, you also took a moment to be thankful for the nice things in your life.

For example, I am thankful for you reading, commenting, and sharing this blog.

Gratitude has become a big topic in the zeitgeist these days.  I don’t remember it being such a “thing” when I was younger.  Of course, you were supposed to practice gratitude on Thanksgiving, but it wasn’t a trendy, daily practice type thing. When I stopped to think about it, it is something that seems like it has been building over maybe the past ten years into something that is now ubiquitous.

Maybe seven years ago, I met a neuroscientist who was doing research on the health impacts of gratitude.  I don’t remember all of the methodologies, but the punchline was that there was some sort of measurable, physical benefit.  Apparently, it was a big up-and-coming area of study because now it seems like there is all sorts of scientific research about the positive impacts of practicing gratitude.

I was recently in charge of the impromptu speaking portion of my Toastmasters meeting.  The theme for the meeting was gratitude.  I did a quick google search of gratitude practices and came across the practice of a gratitude jar.  I’m not sure how you’re really supposed to do it, but for my purposes, I cut a bunch of scraps of paper and wrote random things that I would be grateful for.  Then, everyone had to draw a scrap from the jar and speak for one minute about how they are grateful for whatever it was.

sometimes I’m grateful that I have a habit of saving jelly jars

I’ll tell you what, I did not expect it to be such a challenge!  I mean there were things like “books,” and “friends,” and “vacation” in the jar.  Two things that really got recipients flummoxed were “apples,” and “cats.” 

I love apples.  I am very grateful for the delicious taste sensation of sliced apple with cheese. But there are so many delightful apple applications to be grateful for – not the least of which is apple pie.  Don’t you agree?  Somehow, this was a stumper.

And cats goes without saying.  If you can’t even pretend to be grateful for cats, I’m not sure what to tell you.

My favorite thanksgiving gratitude practice is taking a yoga class and I have a favorite memory from a few years ago.  It was a usual, beautiful southern California day and I rode my bike down to yoga on the bluff.  I was just telling Mr. Man about how the memory of that day reminds me of so many things that I am grateful for: my pink bike, beautiful California weather, and practicing yoga outside with a whole mess of characters from every walk of life while looking out at the Pacific Ocean.

Like everything else, it is important not to overdo it on gratitude on Thanksgiving and then neglect to practice it for the rest of the year. A moderate amount of gratitude on a regular basis is what is recommended for optimum results.  Try to find one little thing every day, see if you feel a difference.

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Happy Bar-versary Bar Method Long Beach!

This November marks the eight-year anniversary (or, as I like to call it bar-versary) of the Bar Method Long Beach (BMLB).  Coincidentally, the studio’s anniversary happens right around the same time as the owner, Joanna West’s birthday. So, today’s post is dedicated to celebrating both BMLB and Jo.  Who doesn’t love a two-for-one celebration?

There are those times when I just feel a little squirmy about my workout. I need to get moving, but I don’t want to do the usual things. When I get that feeling, the best thing for me to do is head to BMLB. The week of the studio’s anniversary coincided with that squirmy feeling convincing me that I needed to “get back to the bar” as they say and subsequently having my butt kicked by Jo in her Monday morning, take-no-prisoners Bar Move class.

There is something about a bar method workout.  I’ve said before how civilized it is – the lovely studio, the smooth and controlled movements, the calm-yet-authoritative manner of the instructor – it all combines to put you in a very serene and centered frame of mind, even while your thighs are quivering uncontrollably and your buns are on fire. I come out of those classes standing taller and feeling more confident in myself every time.  It is just a great experience.

Jo, the owner, is a lovely spirit; she is sweet, and kind, and generous, and tough. I always laugh at myself when I take Jo’s class because I’m always surprised at how extra hard it is.  Her classes are surprisingly tough because she is so sweet and has such a nice way about her that when you’re dying you are surprised to realize that she is kicking your butt with her soft voice and friendly smile.

She has brought the same sweetness and toughness to her business. She is a hard-working businesswoman in a highly competitive niche. What she has done that sets her studio apart from the competition is foster a sense of community. Jo makes a point of supporting other women, as clients, as employees, and as fellow businesswomen. When a regular recently launched a handbag line, Jo hosted a trunk show for her.  She’s been similarly generous to so many of us.

Jo knows what it means to be a successful woman – it means that you support other women and celebrate their successes. She sets an example for everyone at the studio to be supportive, kind, and generous to each other. Everyone celebrates each other’s triumphs (a new job, a new baby, a new haircut) and has each other’s back when times are hard (a lost job, a bad breakup, an injury). I’m not a regular anymore, but every time I’m there, I get to catch up with old friends.  Some of my bar friends are my soul sisters and I’m so thankful that BMLB brought us together.

I’m so proud of Jo for all of the hard work that she puts in to creating such a special place for women in Long Beach to come together in a very quietly understated, yet powerful way.  Thank you, Jo!

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Vitamin D Therapy

One of my favorite treatments to boost my mood and enhance my overall sense of well-being is Vitamin D Therapy.  I find that with even a brief treatment, I feel much better.

Vitamin D is important for building and maintaining strong and healthy bones because calcium can only be absorbed into bones when vitamin D is present.  I think the most fascinating thing about vitamin D is that your body just creates it.  Not out of the blue, but it is synthesized in the skin when exposed to sunlight.  And then it is used to build strong and healthy bones. It’s like photosynthesis for people!

It turns out that there is also a lot of scientific research on the benefit of vitamin D for treating depression and other psychological conditions.  It starts to get really technical, like this article on the National Institute of Health website, but the gist of what I read was that it seems likely that vitamin D can amplify serotonin in the central nervous system, which may lead to treatments for certain neurological disorders (such as ADHD in children). Serotonin is a neurotransmitter used to convey messages between nerve cells and it contributes to feelings of wellbeing and happiness.

Even though it is not fashionable these days, I still like to get my vitamin D the old-fashioned way – by sitting out in the sun. It can be found in certain foods or taken in supplements, but how cool is it that you can get something so good for your body for free, just by going outside?  Totally not scientific, but I sure feel happy and calm after I spend some time in the sun; I like to think that it’s because all of the vitamin D that I’m making is boosting my serotonin levels.

Now, my style of vitamin D therapy is not for everyone.  I am fortunate that I don’t tend to sunburn and if you do, you should certainly limit your exposure.  The Mayo Clinic indicates that the recommended daily dosage is 600 international units (IU) for pretty much everyone (400 for babies under one year and 800 for adults over 70).  I am not sure what that translates into in terms of sun exposure, but I expect that it is not too much.  The way that it is synthesized in the skin varies depending on location, time of year, and skin color and can be inhibited by use of sunscreen.  Basically, if you are more pale, you need less exposure, which is good news for skin safety.  Negative effects are possible with doses of more than 4,000 IU daily, which seems to me would correspond to a pretty nasty sunburn anyway.  So, don’t overdo it!

But if you needed another reason to get up and go outside, think about the fact that not only is nature is awesome, but that you have the ability to create a chemical reaction in your skin that is designed to help you stay healthy and make you feel better.