Flotation Tanks: Should You Give One a Try?

photo: wikipedia

By Crabby McSlacker

So recently I spent an hour in a flotation tank. Or, as they're also known, an isolation tank, or sensory deprivation tank. Given the current state of the world, we could all use some sort of complete break from reality, right?

Or hell, if I wanted to be even more cumbersome about it (and not leave any potential googlers out), I could also say: I undertook some "restricted environmental stimulation therapy," or a "flotation REST."

Yep: I lay there naked in the dark, closed off in a little heated box, suspended in a solution of epsom salts designed induce an extreme state of relaxation and make my arms and legs and everything else melt away, leaving nothing but a state of pure Crabby consciousness.

Why would I do such a thing? What was it like? Did I freak out? Did I see God? Would I do it again? Do I have any advice for how to prepare?

Answers to these and other questions no one has cared to ask me below!

Barking up the Right Tree

By Crabby McSlacker

 

So as I mentioned, my knee is kinda fucked up lately and I've been doing less of the huffy-puffy type exercising than usual until I can see the doctor.   This means lots more walking, and, unfortunately for you guys, more meditation-like activities and more thinking about all this psychological stuff and how it affects us.

Lately the blog has even sort of unofficially instituted a new feature I could call "Mindfuck Mondays!" But then if  did that, my own contrariness would pretty much guarantee that by next monday I'd want to blog about hemp milk or bog snorkeling or something totally different.  So, fear not, there's no new official monday thing.

But meanwhile, somehow this post seems to be about brains and bark.

Walking Meditation Tips--For People Who Suck at Meditation

Walking meditation is a wonderful way to combine both mental and physical exercise, allowing you to kill two birds with one stone.  (Let's just leave aside the question of why you want two dead birds in the first place).

Walking is also an especially accessible route to meditation for people like me, those folks with neurotic overactive thinky brains who struggle with more traditional forms. It's a great alternative method for achieving a lovely trancey surreal experience, and hell, if it doesn't work, at least you've gotten some exercise. 

But if you've looked into it, traditional instructions for walking meditation seem to be aimed at people who already like to meditate. For me, they manage to take a means of exercise that isn't too odious in itself, and turn it into tedious effortful drudgery. 

However, by wandering around totally ignoring traditional methods and just making shit up, I've stumbled on much more entertaining ways to do walking meditations. Which, once I got past the first page or so of google searches, I discovered I didn't actually invent, but whatever.

Yet I'm so not an expert at this stuff, who am I to be giving advice?  You should probably ignore it. Plus,  as you might imagine, some of my variations are quite a bit weirder than what you'll find elsewhere.

Whining: New and Improved!

It wouldn’t be Cranky Fitness without whining, would it?

Five bucks? TOTALLY worth it!

Yet in my recent personal development quest (goal: transform from worrywart crankbucket into radiant beaming flower child filled with love and joy and all that crap) I’ve been trying to think a bit more positively.

Here's the dilemma: how can I work towards more joy and optimism in life while still indulging in a favorite habit (bitching), so that I still get to savor a little self-righteous indignation every now and then?

Well, I learned a handy trick from one of my many self-improvement books! (And no, not The Power of Going on Oprah Now; this is a bit too unenlightened and thinky for our pal Eckhard Tolle).

This tip is easy-peasy.  So care to watch Crabby use Whining 2.0 to handle any negativity surrounding the mostly awesome cross-country trek she just finished taking with her spouse and favorite traveling companion, the Lobster?

The Trick to "Positive" Whining:

This is one you probably already know, but just pretend along with me that it's a new idea, okay?

First go ahead and try to take a negative or ambiguous situation and reframe it as a positive one. (Oh goody! This 40 mile traffic jam will give me a great chance to catch up on 7 months of missed kegels!)

But if your inner bullshitometer goes off the charts and you realize you are SO not buying it, consider the next best alternative:

Go ahead and bitch, but be sure to end with a shiny positive thing. (You can always find something).

For example, instead of:


"We're staying at a hotel because our plumbing system backed up and our our house is full of raw sewage and we're totally devastated and who knows when we'll ever get our lives back..."

Try:

"Our plumbing system backed up and our house is filled with raw sewage, can you f--cking believe it?  But we're staying at a hotel and now we don't have to wash our sheets or vacuum or empty the trash or scrub the bathroom because the cleaning people do it all!"

Or, instead of:

"It was a great graduation party until uncle Bernie got drunk and barfed in the punchbowl."

Try:

 "Well, Bernie got drunk and barfed in the punchbowl, but it was a great graduation party!"

See the difference? Since our brains are so clueless, we tend to remember the last thing we told ourselves and feel more upbeat about the exact same situation.

As it happens, I don't need to do any fancy reverse-bitching technique to convince myself that we had an awesome time driving crosscountry in Fran the Van.   But there are always a few little nitpicks, right?

Like:

"Hey Planet Fitness in Elyria Ohio that charged us 20 f--cking dollars each for day passes (the cost of two months of membership) and then only had those sucky Life Fitness elliptical machines and not one of my beloved Precors and also had no soap in the showers... nice job on the bright colors!!!

Um, "no critics?"  Good luck with that.

(On the other hand, kudos to the Bozeman Montana Gold's gym which was luxuriously well-equipped, had reasonably priced day passes, and was stocked full of the most buffed fitness freaks I've ever run across, many of whom were actually friendly. And how cute is Bozeman?!?)

Or another example: too bad my crappy photography skills meant I missed pictures of a fox, a moose, a buffalo, a ton of beautiful birds, and even the bizarre appearance of a mink crossing a busy urban street in Seattle...but hooray, I caught one of the nineteen million prairie dogs in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota!

And yes, it was standing up in a much more adorable pose until I got the camera out.

OK, so now I'm having to stretch a bit as there weren't a lot of legitimate whining opportunities to exploit...

Too bad about that state campground outside of Coueur D'Alene that was supposed to be open wasn't, damnit! But instead we ended up staying right on a river in a different campground in which we were the only campers there and had a lovely time.

The Lobster and Fran the Van down by the riverside.

And now I have to abandon all pretense of feeling the least bit cranky about our trip. We had lovely weather the whole way and loads of fun. Some random pictures follow which should really be posted on my personal Facebook page instead of here, but every time I try they end up upside down or something. I have some sort of weird Facebook Incompetency Syndrome for which there is apparently no cure... um, but think of all the time I save not posting there!

Toodling around in Seattle...

I'm the brawn, she's the brains--works out perfectly.

We saw lots of cute old mining towns, which we were too lazy to try to photograph, but the Lobster couldn't resist this sign:

And blah blah blah more frolicking along the way...

Until we arrived in Provincetown Massachusetts with tons of dirty laundry, boxes to unpack, stacks of mail to sort, accumulated dust and leaves and weeds to clear out, furniture to haul from the basement and shed, overflowing email boxes and other miscellaneous items that needed attention...

This lovely specimen had a grand old time in the back of our cupboard while we were gone.

...but it's GREAT to be back!!!

Missed you guys, since obviously my efforts to stay in touch with the online world were a total FAIL. But can't wait to get caught up with what you've all been up to!

Any thoughts on reverse-whining, or interesting stuff that happened while I was gone, or just wanna say hi?


Whining sign photo credit: Russell Reno
Planet Fitness shot stolen from the Planet Fitness people, please don't sue me!

Smart Phones and Dumb Humans: Is Web Technology Messing With Your Brain?

Photo: boris

So I finally signed up for Twitter. There's now a little widget down there on the left sidebar that displays my "tweets."

I'm at the Clueless Newbie stage of twitterdom and still have no idea what to tweet, or how to get people to "follow me," or even what the damn thing is supposed to be for. Also, I don't own a smart cell phone, just a dumb one (which is appropriate considering I never recharge it can't remember the phone number), so fear not--you won't have to read my thoughts from the grocery store about what brand of yogurt I'm buying.

My day is just not interesting enough for me to report on my doings every few minutes.

"What are you doing?" Twitter asks, all perky and hopeful.

Photo: Netzkobold

Well, gosh, Twitter...

I'm sitting here on my ass in front of the computer screen again, trying to write a blog post. And later, I might go into the kitchen for a snack! I'm thinking some little almond crunchy things and a glass of milk. Oh hell, that's way more than 140 characters and I just remembered...

Nobody gives a fuck what I'm doing right now.

Cartoon: nataliedee.com

So I'm thinking maybe I'll use Twitter to point out interesting health studies I come across, or fun videos, or stray thoughts, or blog announcements, other miscellaneous items that I don't necessarily want to write a whole post about.

Or, more likely--after a couple of weeks I'll stop using it entirely and pretend I never signed up. I joined Twitter for the same compelling reason a teenager one day starts wearing all her t-shirts inside out: because she figures that's what the cool kids are doing and she wants to be one of them.

(I can now hear my mother saying: "but what if all your blogger friends decided to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, would you do that too?" And my answer would be..."No way, of course not!... Well, not unless I got a humongous boost in page views or a cool sidebar badge or something.")

Anyway, what I will most certainly not do with Twitter is use it properly, like a professional blogger or a young person would. I will not read or skim through thousands of tweets a day, replying @hither and @yon, gaining thousands of followers and networking and building new relationships and bringing hordes of new visitors to Cranky Fitness. That sounds like way too much work. I'm already terrible at keeping up with lovely blogfriends I've met through the comments here. Instead, I will fail to keep up, and watch as my 7 followers drop to 3, and then when I'm down to zero followers I'll try to figure out if there's a way I can follow myself--without defying the laws of physics.

But here's the thing: my inability to multi-task, and my stubborn resistance to new internet technology might actually be a good thing! At least according to Nicholas Carr, who's written some fascinating and controversial stuff about modern technology and the human mind.

Carr's contention is that the web and other aspects of modern technology are changing the way our brains work--and not for the better. We may have access to a lot of information, and may be able to take on many tasks at once, but as a result we're getting all stupid and shallow.

Note: this is an oversimplification; Carr is much more balanced than that. But don't blame me, that's at least partly the point! Oversimplification is all we have time for now, and who am I to argue when it means less work for lazy bloggers?

Anyway, here are some brief excerpts from recent articles in The Sun ("Computing the Cost: Nicholas Carr On How The Internet Is Rewiring Our Brains") and The Atlantic ("Is Google Making Us Stupid?")

See what you think; is he on to something? Does any of this sound familiar?

"Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory....I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. ... Now I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text."

"I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet... Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets, reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link."

"Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski."

Anyone else notice this phenomenon? I know my ability to concentrate on difficult tasks seems to have suffered quite a bit since I've gotten more used to endless distractions of the web. On the other hand, I discovered when I took a couple of weeks off from the web recently that I'm perfectly able to immerse myself in a well-written novel--especially if it's funny or compelling or features hot lesbian love scenes between 18th century English aristocrats.

Anyway.

Carr goes on to point out the ways in which our culture is changing to accommodate our web-altered short attention spans, and brings up other negative aspects of our technological dependence: the costs in terms of our relationship with people, nature, and our privacy. In particular, he worries that we will "emphasize efficiency of thought over depth of thought. I fear we’re going to lose...the kind of contemplative, reflective intelligence that is most valuable, most human."

I'm not sure I agree with all of his darkest scenarios, but I worry about some of these things too. However, aside from a study comparing new computer users to experienced ones (that shows some brain changes) the articles are a little light on research. (And I have to confess, true to his predictions, I didn't read every word of either article and it could be he had a lot more proof of the whole re-wiring hypothesis in there that I didn't see). Carr has also written several books and has a new one coming out in June, called The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains; perhaps that's where all the convincing "our brains are totally fucked up now" research is.

However, whatever the research says, the whole idea of the internet messing with my brains definitely got me thinking! ... At least for a few seconds.

***Personal footnote for Cranky Team Co-bloggers: You know that section of the Official Cranky Fitness Style Manual on "Appropriate Language" (pg 243, paragraph 2), that reads: "In order not to offend sensitive readers or potential advertisers, please try to avoid the gratuitous use of swearwords, or if you must use them, consider the strategic use of asterisks-- i.e., "bullsh*t"; "assh*le"; or "f*cked up?" Um, you can go ahead and cross that section out. Thx, Crabby.

Are any of you on Twitter? And if not, would you bother to look at a sidebar thingy on the blog that had health links or should I not bother? And what do you think about the notion that the internet is... um... doing something bad to our... wait I forgot what I was gonna ask you.

Show of Hands?

So here's a weird study I read last week:

If you are going to be tested on rote memory, and you are right-handed, you may want to first sweep your eyes back and forth for thirty seconds. It will help you remember more.

If you're a lefty, it won't really help.

Weird, huh? Apparently the eye-sweeping helps because it improves communication between the brain's hemispheres, which seems to aid in recall.

And so why does this trick work better with people who are strongly right-handed, like I am?

Because apparently our two hemispheres suck when it comes to communicating with each other! Well, at least compared to lefties or more ambidextrous folks. We extreme righties are more likely to benefit from tricks that get the two sides talking.

Otherwise, apparently our left hemispheres are all: "shut up, right brain, I don't have to listen to you, I'm dominant!" and our right hemispheres are all "oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I just thought you might want to know this thing I noticed which was..." but then our bossy left brains are still like "Get lost! Lists of words are my department. Didn't I tell you I got this?" And then meanwhile all the ambidextrous people and the lefties have finished up the word memorization task and have gone on to get elected president or whatever.

Yeah, he's a smarty-pants lefty.

OK, so I may not have gotten the physiological details exactly right.

I did try to do some research on this whole handedness and hemisphere stuff. Alas, I ended up more confused when I finished than when I started.


But at least I can try to pass along some interesting answers to questions I never thought to ask: like, for example: who's smarter and earns more money, a righty or a lefty? And who's more likely to be a schizophrenic or a pedophile?

First Off, How Right or Left Handed Are You?

Of course "handedness" is more of a continuum than a flat out category. Folks vary to the degree in which they prefer one hand or one side over the other. There's a handedness test here, although for me, this was not exactly a difficult question.

I am SO right-hand/left hemisphere dominant that none of the questions even came close to soliciting a left-handed answer. I do everything with my right hand. I also chew on the right side of my mouth, and favor my right eye even though my left eye actually sees better. When I go to the gym, I can lift more weight with my right arm even though I'm supposed to stop doing that and wait for my sissy left arm to catch up. (I've tried, but it never does. I finally decided: screw it, the right arm is more awesome and it gets to have bigger muscles. Deal with it, left arm. You get to wear the watch and the wedding ring, ok?)

But how about you guys--righties, lefties, or somewhere in between?


Handedness and Hemispheres

According to an interesting article over at How Stuff Works, the two hemispheres of the brain mostly process the same information, with data passing back and forth between them. But a few tasks, like language processing, tend to take place in one hemisphere or the other. While righties primarily use the left hemisphere for language processing, many lefties process language using both hemispheres of the brain.

And, so good news for you lefties: apparently you guys "have brains that are more conducive to simultaneous, bi-hemisphere processing of information."


Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain or Whatever

I went to look for the whole "right vs. left side of the brain" research, and specifically, how you can you get your hemispheres to talk to each other better? (Maybe intra-cranial couples counseling?) But it all got way too confusing. I was remembering all those books and articles from the 80's about how we need to use our intuitive creative right brains more, and not so much our uptight, linear, logical left brains. And how if we use our left hands for things and breath in through our left nostril we'll be the next Vincent Van Gogh.

Alas, there seem to be a lot of folks now saying: er, the left brain, right brain differences other than language aren't that big. We use both sides for most things. And a cranky Scotttish neuroscientist (a man after my own heart) claims that much of this brain training stuff is a waste of time.

Being a lazy blogger and not a fancy University Professor, I decided to put off further investigation for another time. Instead, how about some goofy facts about the difference between right handed and left handed people?

Lefties Have Some Cognitive Advantages

And not just in rote memorization. A recent left handed psychiatric research roundup (written by a leftie, btw), noted that:

Left-handed Pakistani subjects were significantly more intelligent than right-handed Pakistani subjects.

Left-handed college-educated men earned 15 percent more than right-handed college-educated men did.

But Lefties Are Also A Bit Nuttier

Sorry, lefties, but research suggests you're more likely to have certain mental disorders.

Like, a unusually large percentage of left-handed or ambidextrous people have autism, dyslexia, stuttering, or neurodevelopmental disorders.

Oh, and, um, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and pedophilia.

(The numbers are still really small though. But just in case you were feeling all cocky about the being smarter and more financially successful than us poor right handed folks.)

So where do you all fall on the left/right continuum? Done any brain training, and did it help make you more intuitive or creative? And for the lefties, I imagine being left-handed in a right-handed world comes with some challenges that we righties don't even realize?

Foxes and Hedgehogs

Photo: Eric Bégin

"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."
--Some ancient Greek dude named Archilochus

Research suggests that some people are "hedgehogs" and others are "foxes." This dichotomy came up recently in a Newsweek article about political pundits. Inspired by the ancient Greek poet, and further developed by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, the division of the world into people who think like "foxes" versus "hedgehogs" is a handy concept.

So how you do spot a "hedgehog" or a "fox" in the wild?

According to the article, hedgehogs know "one big thing." They "apply that one thing everywhere, express supreme confidence in their forecasts, dismiss opposing views and are drawn to top-down arguments deduced from that Big Idea."

Foxes, on the other hand, "know many things. They consider competing views, make bottom-up inductive arguments from an array of facts and doubt the power of Big Ideas."

"At one extreme, hedgehogs seek certainty and closure, dismiss information that undercuts their preconceptions and embrace evidence that reinforces them, in what is called 'belief defense and bolstering.' At the other extreme, foxes are cognitively flexible, modest and open to self-criticism."

Are you a Fox or a Hedgehog? And who would you rather listen to on TV?

The Newsweek article explored the reasons why the experts you hear pontificating in the media often have their heads up their asses make inaccurate predictions about what's going to happen in the future.

Turns out, it's at least partly because the media favors the very sort of pundit who is the least able to make accurate predictions. "The media's preferred pundits are forceful, confident and decisive, not tentative and balanced." The problem: these are not the people we should be listening to.

(This is all based on research by Philip Tetlock, who did a big study on the accuracy of expert predictions and wrote a book about it a few years ago.)

Those forceful, highly-regarded pundits? They're generally "hedgehogs." And compared to the more tentative "foxes," hedgehogs are really bad at predicting what will happen in the future. Tetlock looked at 82,361 predictions by 284 pundits, and found that the "The hedgehog-fox dimension distinguished more accurate forecasters from less accurate ones." And the more well-known the expert? The less likely it was he or she would be accurate.

Cranky Fitness prides itself on being totally obscure, so if we were ever to try to predict anything, you could totally trust us!

Also, without having read either Berlin or Tetlock, we created a somewhat similar "cognitive style analysis" a while back: the Screaming Baby-Heads versus the Wishy-Washy Grown-Ups.) Alas, Newsweek is not citing our analysis, which is too bad, because we could use a little publicity so we could let it go to our heads and get all confident and forceful like the hedgehogs!

Anyway, is it safe to assume that most of us here are Foxes, not Hedgehogs? Cranky Fitness does not have "the answer" to anything. Around here, it's all "maybe," and "apparently" and "on the other hand" and "what do we know?" and "whooops!" We also kinda get from reading your comments that you guys are every bit as flexible and balanced and confused as we are. This is Fox territory, not a great roosting place for Hedgehogs.

But Hey, Aren't We Cute When We're Angry?
(Photo: meantux)

"Tentative, Balanced, and Proud of It!"

It's not a very catchy slogan, is it? But that's how we roll.

It's funny, this post was originally going to be about "Hedgehog Envy." Because sometimes I do think it would be so nice to be a Hedgehog! It would be so much easier to look at the confusing, ever-changing, frustrating, complicated world we live in and feel less conflicted and mystified.

But it's almost like there's something in the air--a barely perceptible change in tone that making the world a bit more hospitable to foxes these days. Not that we'll ever hear the end of the hedgehogs--the media will continue to favor them and of course they NEVER shut up.

However (and this may just be wishful thinking), I get the sense that regular people (as opposed to media outlets) are getting weary of all the forceful hedgehog types out there. The defensive posturing, inflexibility, black and white thinking, and "easy" answers--these don't seem the best match for the messy, complicated world we live in right now.

But I'm not a hedgehog, so what the hell do I know? What do you folks think about foxes and hedgehogs?

Can Stress Be Good For You?

Photo: Kelvin255

According to an article in Newsweek, stress has a undeservedly bad reputation.

I saw the magazine cover: "Stress Could Save Your Life (Or at Least it's Better for You Than You Think") and thought: awesome! But I also wondered: Really, can that be right?

If true, this would be great news. I've read dozens, if not hundreds, of studies over the years saying just how bad chronic stress is for your health. (These studies are of course stressful to read. "Wait, I'll get Alzheimer's, heart disease, and Parkinsons if I don't stop worrying about Alzheimer's, heart disease, and Parkinsons??!!").

But I found myself skeptical. How could something that's generally recognized as bad for you all of a sudden be good? It's like reading we should be eating a lot more cheeseburgers and ice cream, and a lot fewer vegetables. Welcome news, perhaps, but is really OK to stop stressing about stress?

By the end of the article, I still wasn't quite sure. There seems to be growing recognition that certain kinds of stress aren't bad at all--in certain situations, for certain people. But the kind of stress that most of us worry about--the nagging, chronic, "how are we gonna pay the bills" kind--didn't exactly get the "all clear" I'd hoped for.


Trying to Put Common Sense Back into the Conversation:

The main theme of the article seems to be that stress researchers have been so focused on the negative impact of stress, they've led us to believe that stress can never be positive.

Which is silly! It's not always negative. For example, have you ever made it successfully through an oral exam, a Big Game, a music recital, a job interview, or some other situation you were scared to death of? I don't have any handy studies to cite, but surely the sense of exhilaration and accomplishment after a dreaded event must be good for us? It's so motivating and rewarding!

Yet according to the author, she kept running into researcher after researcher who claimed "good stress" didn't exist. "We never tell people stress is good for them," one said. "Another allowed that it might be, but only in small ways, in the short term, in rats." As to people who claim to thrive on stress, like some policemen or ER docs or air-traffic controllers? The author talked to experts who said these people were "pathological."

Fortunately, she eventually found a few experts with more sensible sentiments. Like: "some stress is healthy and necessary to keep us alert and occupied." Or, "most people do their best under mild to moderate stress."

Other pro-stress opinions quoted in the article: "The stress response...evolved to help us survive... In the short term, it can energize us, revving up our systems to handle what we have to handle."

"In the long term, stress can motivate us to do better at jobs we care about. A little of it can prepare us for a lot later on, making us more resilient. Even when it's extreme, stress may have some positive effects—which is why, in addition to posttraumatic stress disorder, some psychologists are starting to define a phenomenon called posttraumatic growth."

OK, I'll buy that. And the "posttraumatic growth" idea sounds interesting. Because we all know of folks who have been transformed in positive ways by really awful experiences. But what about the bad kind of stress we always hear about?


Acute vs Chronic Stress

While acute stress and the "fight or flight" response may be handy in the short term, problems can arise when we can't shut it off. At some point, "neurons get tired of being primed, and positive effects become negative ones...Neurons shrivel and stop communicating with each other, and brain tissue shrinks in the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex, which play roles in learning, memory and rational thought."

Whoops, that doesn't sound good!

But another Newsweek article in the same issue argued that the relationship between stress and disease has been over-sold. The author claimed that while stress can worsen the symptoms of any disease, it is seldom the sole explanation for a patient's suffering. But then a related link to WebMD reminds us that chronic worrying can lead to a whole bunch of health problems, like suppression of the immune system, digestive disorders, muscle tension, short-term memory loss, premature coronary artery disease, and even heart attacks.

Again, not quite the reassurance I was hoping for.


Tough Childhoods, Zen Monkeys, and Special Forces

One important point the article made was that research has done a lousy job of recognizing how much individual difference there is in how people handle stress. Some people are easily overwhelmed; others are much more resilient. Which kind are you?

For example, research on laid-off telephone workers in the 1970s and 1980's found that while most of the workers suffered with higher rates of divorce, heart attacks, obesity and strokes--a third of the workers handled the transition well. Why? Well, many of them had "fairly tough childhoods that led to their being very hardy people." So early stress can sometimes lead to greater resilience later in life.

Similarly, a baboon researcher (wait... I mean a guy who studies baboons, not a baboon who conducts research) found that some alpha males who were subject to the usual baboon stressors—"power struggles, unsuccessful sexual overtures, the occasional need to slap down a subordinate" had stable hormone levels, unlike like other more Stressed Out alphas. These baboons were essentially "minimalist Zen masters." (Alas, none of them are leading any self-help seminars that I know of, so don't get your hopes up about learning Baboon Zen Management techniques any time soon).

The most fascinating example of individual differences? Check out how the military goes about testing and training soldiers for highly dangerous missions. (It totally freaked me out. Note to self: do not join the military and sign up for Dangerous Assignments!!) Anyway, they discovered that elite Special Forces soldiers had different physiological reactions to extremely stressful situations than the regular army guys, and thus performed much better. Apparently they released more of a brain chemical, NPY, which works as a natural tranquilizer.

But the weirdest part? One of the predictors of who would do best under extreme stress (and release more NPY) was heart rate variability. The best survivors didn't have much of it; they had "metronomic heartbeats." However, while it may make you a Superhero under extreme stress, the downside of this metronomic effect? It's "usually associated with early heart disease and even sudden death." Healthy people generally have more heartrate variability.

So for us wimpy folks who panic under stress? Perhaps we shouldn't be too envious of the Superhero types after all!


How Do You Folks Cope With Stress?

From everything I've read, it sounds like meditation is one of the best weapons in the battle against chronic stress--but as I've mentioned before, I suck at it. So I tend to pursue other options: exercise, deep breathing, relaxing music, and "cognitive" interventions. And by "cognitive interventions," I mean trying to think more like a rational person and less like a lunatic when it comes to things that worry me.

How about you guys? Feeling any extra stress these days, and if so, how do you cope? Can you turn it into a positive, rather than a negative in your life?

Can Money Buy Happiness?

A new study says: yes, sometimes money can buy happiness, depending on how you spend it.

The topic seems quite timely, because what with the economy in such dire straits, many of us are worried about what we're spending our money on. We naturally want to get the most bang for our buck.

So let's say someone handed you a few thousand dollars you weren't expecting. (Hooray!) According to this latest study, what do you think the wisest investment of this money would be for your personal happiness?

a. Get your car fixed so that you're not driving around on bald tires with an engine that stalls out at unpredictable moments, thus increasing the chances you'll make it to work alive every morning;

b. Replace the upstairs toilet with one that doesn't spontaneously flush every half an hour, and finally do something about that black mold some annoying plumber told you was probably "toxic";

c. Buy yourself a Rolex;

d. Take some friends on a trip to an exotic island to go snorkeling.

Clearly you'll be much happier if you...

(d) Take everyone snorkeling, of course!

This is why I tend to hate "happiness" studies.

True, the study didn't actually ask this exact question. But it does irritate me that researchers aren't very good at measuring the peaceful, stable, boring kinds of happiness--like the kind you get knowing that the bills are paid and there is food in the refrigerator.

Anyway, in this study, researchers found that "experiential" purchases such as "a meal out or theater tickets," led to "increased well-being because they satisfy higher order needs." They concluded that "buying life experiences rather than material possessions leads to greater happiness."

I actually agree that this is mostly true. (More on that in a moment). And other research has said experiences beat possessions too. But I still have to gripe about the study because griping makes me happy! Take that, happiness researchers.

Anyway, participants were asked "to write reflections and answer questions" about what they'd bought recently. Since "participants indicated that experiential purchases represented money better spent and greater happiness" the researchers concluded this must be true.

I'm sorry nice researchers, but I think the methodology of the study screws with the results. Would you be willing to rhapsodize in a little essay about your new iPod, not to mention that nifty low-flow toilet, the same way you might a trip to the symphony? You're going to sound much cooler (and have more to say) about a recent "experience" than a "thing." Does it really mean you will get more happiness out of the fleeting experience than the "thing" in the long run? (Although personally, I could write a 5,000 word essay on why I still love the garlic press I got for a Christmas present five years ago, but then I'm a little odd).

In Defense of Possessions:
Here's my main objection to the research: I think "possessions" vs "experiences" is a false dichotomy. Because something like a bicycle, or a great book, or a new plant to put in the garden, or a bowling ball may technically be an object, but it also can create or transform an experience and provide a lot of happiness.

I think the real debate should be about things we buy for status, versus things we buy for our own comfort or pleasure or adventure. An "experiential" dinner eaten at a Trendy Restaurant is, in my mind, a lousy bargain if you only went because it seemed like a sophisticated thing to do. But a great book or a new kitchen gadget or a comfy pair of running shoes can be a great happiness bargain, if using them gives you pleasure.

The relationship of money to happiness is a fascinating topic, isn't it? Because we all have opinions about money, and about happiness. And we're all pretty sure we're spending our money the right way, on the best things.

Of course the research pretty consistently says that we're clueless. Money doesn't buy us nearly the happiness we think it will; and we tend to spend it on dumb things.

It does help to get your basic needs met. But according to an interesting article on money and happiness from a couple of years ago, "going from earning less than $20,000 a year to making more than $50,000 makes you twice as likely to be happy, yet the payoff for then surpassing $90,000 is slight."

Do you ever marvel at people who spend a fortune on luxury automobiles and vastly oversized homes, then find themselves working insane hours at jobs they hate in order to pay for them? (Sometimes there's even a perverse kind of happiness in noting how silly other people are about their choices).

All kinds of things make me happy; some of them (like massages, good restaurants, or travel to foreign countries) are expensive. But while it may be a bit of a cliche that "the best things in life are free," sometimes it's true. Or at least they're pretty cheap. Other favorites: a cup of good coffee in the morning; a peaceful stroll along a beach or through the woods; music so beautiful it makes you sigh; a laughter-filled evening with best friends; or a blissful weekday evening hunkered down with a beloved spouse, a pizza, a purring cat and a favorite tv show.

So do you folks think money can buy happiness? What do you think are good happiness "bargains?" Any examples you've seen of really lame ways to try to buy happiness?

Happily Ever After

What sort of person should you spend the rest of your life with?

A recent survey looked at how men and women decide which qualities are most important in choosing a romantic partner. Researchers at the University of Iowa surveyed 1,100 undergrads--and then compared their answers to past surveys.

So, care to guess how important "chastity" is now, compared to back in the 1930's? Or how differently men and women responded to the same questions?

What Do Today's Men Want in a Partner?

Here's what the guys said (ranked from most to least in importance):

Essential characteristics:

• Mutual attraction and love.
• Dependable character.
• Emotional stability.

Important characteristics:

• Education and intelligence.
• Good looks.
• Ambition.

Desirable characteristics:

• Good financial prospect.
• Good cook and housekeeper.

Unimportant characteristics:

• Similar political background.
• Chastity.

And How About What the Gals Want?

Essential characteristics:

• Mutual attraction and love.
• Dependable character.
• Emotional stability.

Important characteristics:

• Education and intelligence.
• Desire for home and children.
• Ambition.

Desirable characteristics:

• Good looks.
• Refinement.

Unimportant characteristics:

• Similar political background.
• Chastity.

What? Men and Women Are Almost the Same!

OK, heterosexuals, you'll have to help me out on this one: I thought gender roles, expectations, and stereotypes were supposed to be alive and well out there in dating land. From the popular media, one would think that in terms of priorities, it's pretty simple: guys want hotties; women want successful Masters of the Universe. So shouldn't these two lists look a little more different from each other?

Are things really changing, or are undergraduates just lying when they take surveys?

True, "Good cook and housekeeper" did not seem to appear very high on women's lists; also women rated their desire for home and children higher than men did (fourth for women; ninth for men). But otherwise: remarkably similar.

So How Have Times Changed?

Love and attraction was not always ranked the most important item; back a few generations ago, it wasn't even even in the top three.

In the 1930s "male respondents were seeking a dependable, kind lady who had skills in the kitchen." And chastity was considered more important than intelligence; it was ranked tenth. Now, chastity is "dead last."

Men have also grown more appreciative of womens' earning ability: they ranked "good financial prospect" 12th in 2008; it was 18th in 1967, and 17th in 1939.

For women back in the 1930s, emotional stability, dependable character and ambition were the top three characteristics they wanted in a man. Attraction and love didn't come in until No. 5.

Women these days rank "pleasing disposition" much further down than they did in the old days. But researchers weren't sure what that meant. Are women ditching nice, amiable guys in favor of churlish louts? Or did the old-fashioned wording of "pleasing disposition" just throw women off?

So What Does Crabby Think of this Survey?

1. It's very cute! It's kind of adorable reading what young people think they are looking for in a mate.

2. However, when it comes to predicting the type of partner these young folks will actually choose? A survey like this is pretty much horseshit.

3. Here's the big fat loophole: "Love and Mutual Attraction" as number one. This means that despite a person's stated desire to find a mate who is dependable, stable, smart, well-educated, and ambitious, all those qualities go right out the window when an "attractive" person strikes up a conversation in a bar one night.

4. Young men really rate "education" above "good looks?" Color me skeptical.

5. Are these even the right questions to ask? Given the sort of mates people frequently end up with, more careful screening might be advised. It's one thing to say that "dependable character" and "emotional stability" are important; it's another thing to know what those traits actually look like in a real live attractive human being.

You may, for example, may want to consider:

• Does Potential Mate get arrested with any frequency?
• Does he/she lack boundaries, and have all kinds of weird scary friends and ex-lovers hanging around?
• Always borrowing money?
• Will sometimes hit on your friends?
• Dictatorial and stubborn?
• Mean to children, pets, subordinates at work, or anyone else with less power?
• Jealous or possessive?
• Frequent liar?
• Physically violent, verbally abusive, or constantly angry?
• Substance abuse issues?
• Unexplained disappearances?
• Always has to be "right?"
• Frequently fired from jobs for "absolutely no reason?"
  

None of these are good signs! No matter how cute and charming a potential mate can be, wrong answers to these questions should be cause for alarm. Yet many folks who would swear that they are looking for an emotionally stable, dependable, spouse don't seem to know what this means. Instead they fall for inappropriate emotional trainwrecks, and can't wait to say "I do" no matter how many red flags are flying.

I Could But I Won't. Yet.

This is one area where I actually feel well-qualified to offer advice. I think 99% of having a blissfully happy long-term relationship is choosing the right person to begin with. Having found a Winner myself, it's tempting to set out a bunch of helpful criteria to help people end up as lucky as I am. (Other than the obvious disaster-avoidance ones above).

And I probably will one day, because I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on the issue and this post is already long enough.

But really, who cares what anyone else advises when it comes to matters of the heart?

The human physiological and psychological responses to romantic attraction are so damn powerful, no "helpful advice" is gonna have much impact. Yet as a bystander, does anyone else find it hard to just butt out when you see a friend or loved one stuck on someone wildly inappropriate?

Sigh.

So, for those of you who are looking, what qualities seem most important in a potential mate? And for those of you who have already chosen, were there any qualities which turned out to be a lot more important than you thought they'd be?

Hypochondria Lite

Cartoon by Al Bar

Anyone else out there have a slight tendency toward hypochondria?

No, not the sort where your life is one long parade of ominous symptoms, visits to specialists, and appointments for tests, re-tests, and re-re-tests--because maybe the results say you're fine but suppose the lab accidentally mixed up your samples with some healthy person's?

That's the fullblown, clinical kind. I'm talking about the more occasional, amateur type hypochondria. Hypochondria "Lite."

The sort of hypochondria where, just hypothetically, you might find one night you're seeing some sort of weird crescent shaped thing in your eye, and you remember something about the symptoms of detached retinas and the dire importance of seeking immediate medical attention for them. And then you convince yourself that because you are not going to roust your sleeping spouse and go to the emergency room, you will probably wake up the next morning blind in one eye. But then instead you wake up the next morning and you're fine! And so you forget all about it.

That kind of hypochondria.

Here's a quick diagnostic test.

Let's say you notice a reddish pimply-looking bump on your leg. That bump is most probably:

a. A pimple.

b. The beginning stages of a potentially deadly flesh eating bacteria you must have picked up at the gym, since you've never had a pimple on your leg before in your entire life. However, since it's conceivable that it's something less ominous, you might wait a few days before checking with a doctor.

c. Malignant melanoma in the final stages. You make an appointment with your doctor and insist she see you as soon as possible, but you also call your attorney to update your will because you know you are a goner.

If you are an "A" person, congratulations, you are normal! If you are a "C" person, we need to talk--meet me at the bottom of the post.

But what about all of us "B" people, the Amateur Hypochondriacs? (And yes, both examples were me--I did worry I had a detached retina, and feared I'd contracted MRSA from my gym this summer until the pimple went away).

We amateurs are little worry-wartish about our health and occasionally think we're going to die when we're not--but we don't freak out nearly often enough or severely enough that it screws up our lives.


Saving Grace: Being a Lazy Slacker

The only reason I haven't humiliated myself in doctor's offices from coast to coast with my exagerrated health fears is because I hate going to the doctor. So I take a "wait and see" attitude--even if while I'm waiting and seeing I'm also seriously considering the possibility that I'm dying. But year after year, the weird bumps and aches and numb spots etc have never turned out to be anything fatal. So this strategy has been surprisingly effective.

Here's a particularly weird example: I was out running one morning and when I finished my run, I had lost the ability to remember about 75% of my vocabulary.

Not just abstract words like "abstemious" or "profligate." I couldn't think of basic words like "muffin" or "blueberry" or "egg" (it was breakfast time) or "scared" (which I was) or "stroke," which I was pretty sure I was having.

This bout of aphasia lasted maybe half an hour. And then, wham, a headache. I almost never get headaches. But fortunately, my words came back. (I'm kinda attached to them).

But before I sought medical attention... I had a vague recollection that my mother had a similar episode of not being able to remember words, and that it hadn't been a stroke but something far less scary. So I called her up (once I regained my ability to speak). I asked her what the heck she'd been diagnosed with.

Her answer? A migraine.

Did you know that one symptom of a migraine is aphasia? Well, I didn't, but I sure as hell do now. So it was yet another 911 call I was glad I didn't make.


Good Reasons for Being a Bit of a Worry Wart

I think anyone who spends a fair amount of time reading about health on the web is at least at some risk for health-related anxiety. With access to more medical information that we know what to do with, it's easy to start with a weird pain in your jaw and end up with a bad case of cyberchondria.

Part of the problem is that so many awful, fatal diseases start with vague symptoms that everyone gets all the time. And if you read the "warning signs," many articles will tell you to run off and check with your doctor right away.

Say you're experiencing a bit of fatigue, or you have a headache, or you've lost some weight, or you've got swollen lymph glands, or you're feeling a bit bloated or light-headed or your feet are numb or you're nauseated. Could be nothing--or, depending on the symptom, it could be a heart attack or ovarian cancer or multiple sclerosis or all kinds of serious things. How can we not be a little bit paranoid?

And no doubt some of you have paid attention to vague symptoms, got yourself to a doctor, and saved your own life by catching a potential fatal illness in it's early, treatable stages. Do not read this post and stop doing that!

But I just have too many transient symptoms that have never, ever meant anything. If followed all the advice I've read about when to seek medical attention, I'd be at the doctor's office every damn day of my life. My solution: I don't go in, but I keep tabs on the symptom and freak out a bit, especially if it's something new and weird.

It always goes away again. So far, so good--I'm still alive!

Unfortunately though, I know folks who ignored innocuous symptoms and it turned out to be Something Bad. So I really don't know what the answer is. Serious diseases are pretty darn rare. But if lots of Weird Things are going on, and not going away, then go get it checked out. Don't worry if your doctor thinks your a whiny worry-wart. Unless this pattern seems to happen to you a LOT.

What If Worries About Your Health Are Interfering With Your Life?

You can get help! If you are frequently afraid you have a serious illness even when doctors assure you you're perfectly fine--you don't have to suffer with this type of anxiety anymore. It's treatable. Studies are finding cognitive-behavioral therapy helps a lot, and that Paxil can be effective too. (But since all drugs have side effects, I might investigate the CBT first.)

And speaking of side effects, do they even let folks with hypochondria read about the side effects of drugs used to treat it? Seems like a bad idea! My advice: If you struggle with irrational health worries, you may want to just take the drugs they give you and not look too closely at the package insert.

(Although I love to read drug side effect warnings if I'm not taking the drug myself. It's kind of fascinating! Coffee-ground vomit? Or another Paxil warning: Males: In the very unlikely event you have a painful, prolonged erection, stop using this drug and seek immediate medical attention or permanent problems could occur. Yikes!)

Besides me and Bossy, is there anyone else out there who sometimes thinks they have dire medical disorders when in reality, they are really Perfectly Fine? Or is it something you don't worry about?

Your Brain on Blueberries

[By Crabby]

So yet another study has come out saying that blueberries and other phytochemical-rich foods are good for your brain. These superfoods are even supposed to be "effective at reversing age-related deficits in memory."

Hooray! I love hearing that the healthy food I make myself eat all the time is really good for me.

But hey... wait JUST one minute.

I eat tons of blueberries and consume boatloads of other phytochemicals. And I exercise and get Omega 3's and do all that good brain stuff. And how good is my memory?

It's crap!

Well, it's not Alzheimer's time yet, but since I hit my mid-forties, I've definitely noticed an ever-increasing tendency to space things out.

Someone Never Forgets, but it Sure Ain't Crabby

Would it be that much worse if I was subsisting on the average American Big Mac and Coke and Twinkie diet? Would I enter and leave and re-enter and re-leave and re-re-enter and re-re-leave a room ten times, instead of five, before I finally recalled what I the heck I was looking for?

(Note: Apologies to you young folks. This post will seem boring and irrelevant. Check back in a few years when you, too, are wandering all around the house trying to recall where you set down your coffee cup only to discover you're actually still carrying the cup in your hand.)

Growing up, I'd heard that people's memories started to decline as they got older. But I thought they meant older older. Like, 80. I had no idea that stuff started slipping so soon.

Of course, if I'd just admit my memory is starting to go down the toilet, then perhaps I'd develop better coping skills. I'd write lists and learn mnemonics and rehearse things and just generally pay more attention. But instead, I just float around like I'm still 20 and don't really try to remember things. I just assume that important information, once heard, will be recalled.

But sometimes, it isn't recalled. It's just gone-- phhht!

It's not just the important stuff, either. It's all kinds of things you used to know. Have you ever sat with a group of middle aged people watching Jeopardy? You could make a whole new game out of it. Every time someone says something like: "I know that! Damn it, I know I know that!"--you all have to eat a handful of blueberries.

But here's the one that bothers me the most: often, I will think I have forgotten to do something. So, for example, I'll drag my sleepy ass out of bed and stumble downstairs at 3 a.m. because I suddenly realize I didn't remember to feed the cat or lock the door or whatever.

But of course I once I'm down there, I discover I did remember to lock the door and feed the cat--I just have no memory of having done it.

Perhaps there are only so many slots for mundane day-to-day memories, and by your mid-forties, most of these are full. I'm sure if I went to feed the cat one evening and discovered she was standing on her hind legs and had sprouted opposable thumbs and was using the can opener to help herself to our tuna supply--well, I'd remember that.

I hope.

(There are some memory resources here and a lot of products and services out there you can purchase which can help to train your memory. Personally, rather than add yet another set of exercises to my to-do list, I'd rather just forget things and whine about it. Other tips I've seen: get more sleep, magnesium, fish oil, choline, exercise, relaxation, social activity, and sage.)

Is anyone else a bit forgetful sometimes? Any suggestions?

The Power of Negative Thinking

[By Crabby]

When you encounter a difficult or stressful situation, and someone advises you to: "Think Positive!" or "Look on the Bright Side!" do you:

(a) Smile and say "of course!" because it wouldn't occur to you to view life any other way?

Or do you:

(b) Barely stifle the urge to bop the optimist over the head with an umbrella, which you happen to have with you because it's pretty damn cloudy and the skies could break open at any minute?

Some folks are die-hard optimists and some are resolute pessimists and most of us fall somewhere in between. Personally, I think of myself right in the middle as a "realist," but given the general tendency of American culture to favor optimism, I know I probably fall much further down on the optimism scale--say somewhere around "party pooper."

Pessimism has a bad reputation. According to various studies, which I won't cite because they're annoying, we pessimists are supposedly less happy and less fun to be around blah blah blah.

(But we're also a hell of a lot less likely to lose our shirts when we gamble).

I'm not, in my own mind, overly pessimistic. When some important life event comes up I enjoy fantasizing about best-case scenarios. But I also imagine the worst case ones and I plan for them. I'm never late to the airport or an important meeting, for example, because I find it easy to visualize the multitude of things that could go wrong and make me horrendously late. (And yes, as a result, I'm always really freakin' early for everything).

As it turns out, if you are a somewhat anxious person, there is a psychology professor at Wellesley College, Julie K. Norem, who says: screw the optimism. Optimism isn't the best strategy for everyone. Defensive Pessimism, in which you allow yourself to imagine worst case scenarios, is a perfectly good strategy too. In fact, if you try to "think positively" just because everyone around you says "Turn that frown upside down!" it can just make you more anxious. (There is even a Defensive Pessimism quiz, if you want to find out if you are one. And yeah, I am.)

However, I also think it's possible to be a Very Happy Pessimist, if you do it right. Pessimism isn't something you should have to apologize for, especially if in using it properly you find yourself every bit as happy as one of those perky optimists.

So what's the trick to embracing your negative thinking and Loving Life as a Pessimist? It's actually really easy:

Anticipate the negative, but appreciate the hell out of the positive when it happens. Bonus: the more pessimistic you are, the more often you're pleasantly surprised!

Just think of it as delayed gratification. All those optimists celebrate early, assuming everything will go right. When it doesn't, they either have to cope with disappointment or ignore reality and pretend they never had such high expectations in the first place.

Happy pessimists, however, get the disappointment part over with early. We plan in case things go wrong, so if they do, we're prepared. But here's the difference between a Happy and an Unhappy pessimist: the unhappy one doesn't stop to appreciate that the Bad Things didn't happen.

Don't skip this step, this is the fun part of pessimism. Bask in relief and gratitude that things worked out nicely!

Unhappy pessimists go right on to worrying about the next thing. This, in my opinion, is a big mistake--unless you actually enjoy worrying. Which as it happens, some people do.

Note: I haven't read Professor Norem's book yet, so I could be getting the whole concept of Defensive Pessimism horribly wrong, and have just completely embarrassed myself and driven readers away from Cranky Fitness in droves.

Oh, wait, you're still here? Hooray!

So what sort of outlook do you folks have? Optimist? Pessimist? Somewhere in between? And do you think Crabby is Crazy in thinking there's such thing as a Happy Pessimist?

Memory: Girl Brains and Boy Brains Differ

[By Crabby]

I'm always fascinated by gender differences. While I've personally never fit all that comfortably into the "feminine" world (the subject of an upcoming post, I think), there are still many ways in which I feel distinctly a girl, not a boy. Even if you'd have to threaten me with a lethal weapon to get me to wear false eyelashes or a pair of stiletto heels.

And while exceptions are everywhere, men and women do seem, in many ways, kinda different.

How much of that is how we're wired, and how much of that is because each gender is taught to behave and think differently? The question used to seem really threatening, because any hint of innate difference was seen as a reason to discriminate against women.

Feminism still has a LONG way to go, but we now have at least a little more freedom to wonder about this stuff. I think the main thing that's changed is that it's not as common anymore to assume that the "boy" way of thinking is always better, and the "girl" way is always worse. (People do, however, tend assume that the "boy" way is normal, and the "girl" way is different, even though we are half the freakin' population.)

(There is a book I've been meaning to read called "The Female Brain," which I think explores this subject more thoroughly. Anyone read it yet?).

Anyway, so there's a new study out that suggests women and men remember things differently. In short, "women excelled in verbal episodic memory tasks, such as remembering words, objects, pictures or everyday events, and men outperformed women in remembering symbolic, non-linguistic information, known as visuospatial processing." The example cited is that "a man would be more likely to remember his way out of the woods."

As someone who can barely find my way out of my own bedroom, I've decided to embrace my deficient visuospatial abilities as one of the few ways in which I'm apparently quite feminine. I can always compensate by using my verbal abilities to get someone else to tell me how to get myself where I need to be. Or better yet, I can talk my way out of even having to go anywhere in the first place!

Note: I think individual differences are always more important than overall generalizations, and I know tons of women who can totally kick any guys ass when it comes to finding her way out of the woods. And lets be realistic--which gender usually gets itself lost in the woods in the first place?

So the study also said there were "sex differences favoring women on tasks such as remembering the location of car keys, which requires both verbal and visuospatial processing," and that "women are better than men at remembering faces, especially of females." Overall, they believed "females currently hold the advantage in episodic memory."

It's interesting, then, how often in movies we see women being all flighty and spacey and it's the guys who always remember things. They always get to save the day because they can recognize the terrorist in disguise or remember where the gun was stashed or recall the secret password. Whereas it looks like in real life, it would be the gal who would be more likely to remember that stuff.

There are tons of other ways in which men and women, overall, appear to perhaps function a bit differently; this is just one tiny example. What do you guys think, are these differences significant? Or pretty much imaginary? And if you do see differences, do you think it's mostly because we're born differently or because we're treated differently?

Hey, Look How Strong I... Oh Crap

[By Crabby]

Sure, Crabby is Strong Like This Too!

Is Anyone Else Ever This Dumb?

So I was feeling pretty pleased with myself recently when I noticed that I was actually making some progress with a couple of my ab exercises, despite having had a period of bad behavior when I'd laid off entirely for a week or two.

Apparently the rest did me good, because after after years of settling into the same routine, all of a sudden I felt strong enough to push myself further and further each time! It wasn't just a good day, but workout after workout, I was finding the motivation and strength to power though more reps than I'd ever done before!

Until I realized... somewhere along the line I'd started counting differently. These were exercises that had a left and a right side, and I used to count "one" after completing both sides. Now I was going left: "one," right "two."

Sh*t.

So I was actually doing way less than I had before, but feeling incredibly smug about it.

And this is not the first time I've had such disappointments:

My walking and running times at a newly discovered running track were so much better than I thought they'd be--my half-assed but consistent training efforts had apparently paid off big time, now that I could measure them! I was so psyched I started going to the track all the time--how could I have ever thought running tracks were boring?-- and I found myself abandoning my previous hilly, unmeasurable routes.

Sigh.

Until one day I discovered the track was some sort of freakish old-fashioned non-standard thing that was Way Under a quarter mile. My times were NOT suddenly faster than I'd ever gone before. I sort of wish I hadn't asked, or that the smarty pants soccer team guy hadn't been so pleased and amused to set me straight about it. (Haven't been back to the track since then, oddly enough).

Oh and that stupid "gravitron" machine at the Gold's Gym in D.C.? The one that made me feel SO proud and pumped about how little help I needed to do pull-ups and tricep dips? Too bad I finally noticed that weights labeled in 10 lb increments were actually 20 lb weights, and I was needing twice the help I'd thought I was getting.

Got Skepticism?
Why am I not more suspicious when my usual half-assed efforts all of a sudden yield amazing results? When something is suddenly harder, I'm quite quick to assume there's something wrong with the machine, or that the trail that looks flat must actually be uphill--err, in both directions? Or that it's the wind or hormones or what I ate for breakfast or the cycle of the moon or something.

I just want to believe, so bad, that I'm really awesome and strong and dedicated, without actually putting out the kind of effort to be any of those things.

Heart Rate Goes Up, Brain Shuts Down
Part of my problem too is that I can't think and exercise at the same time. Trying to do six intervals during my treadmill routine proved impossible until I made myself do them at specific time increments--because I discovered I could not count to six.

I even tried putting six pennies in my pocket and taking one out after each interval--but I'd keep forgetting to do it... or thinking maybe I'd forgotten to do it. Surely there couldn't be three f*cking pennies still left--I must have done at least four intervals by now! Maybe I just forgot to take out one of the pennies?

Screw It, It Is What It Is
One answer to the painful disappointment that accompanies faux performance gains: stop measuring and caring that much about how much I do. It's pretty clear after several decades of working out that I'm not willing to push myself hard enough to do amazing things. And I'm pretty content, over all, with my consistent if not spectacular performance. So why get so excited if some number gets big all of a sudden?

Damn ego, wish I could send it packing. But that would probably take some sort of self-improvement effort--and I don't seem to be willing to put in a bunch of time doing that, either.

What about you folks, do you measure your performance and have expectations about it? Ever go through any ups and downs over the results?