Continual Improvement

I’ve been playing around with Jyte, and it seems like a cool way to do some simple reader polls on my blog. This is my first one, so we’ll see how it goes. Click on this link to vote, or click on the widget below, if visible.

No, this is not the beginning of a multilevel marketing pitch. In fact, the pitch is an old story with a different twist, and it begins with the old adage that exercise is good for you. Shocker!? Here are a couple of facts that the local health club rarely mentions.

It’s now and has been a proven fact that exercise will make you smarter. Simple blood flow and increased nerve growth in the brain improve cognition and decrease the amount of degeneration of brain cells. In other words, exercising isn’t about being vain; it’s about being smart.

An additional item rarely mentioned is that exercise helps with sleep. When someone sleeps more sound, they need fewer hours of sleep, which could result in doing something much more productive like being awake. In addition, exercise helps wear out the body physically, which allows one to fall asleep faster and decrease insomnia.

The combination of these two improvements could very well provide a business justification for 45-60 minutes at the gym. An alternative take on this is that regular exercise will prolong a person’s ability to think and focus as they age, which is a bonus that needs little salesmanship.

As any personal trainer or dietitian will attest, the best way to increase general fitness for most people is to cut back on the food, but can cutting back on the calories increase your lifespan and healthy years besides just losing a few pounds? While most associate healthy eating with a lack of obesity diseases, there is a substantial amount of research that says a lack of eating actually decreases the aging process.

One article goes so far as to say that every unnecessary calorie avoided increases your lifespan by 30 seconds. While this statistic might be a little hard to believe, there is hard evidence that reducing calories will slow the metabolism. Unfortunately, eating a lot and exercising it off doesn’t seem to result in the same life extending aspects, even though exercising has its own benefits. Interestingly enough, both of these theories seem to hold true to the health adage that fitness is 80% diet and 20% exercise.

This Men’s Health article on fatigue in men mentions that men typically fail to take even 4 days of vacation per year. It seems hard to believe, regardless of the industry, but it does bring up an issue discussed quite often. The issue revolves around the idea that vacations are often more stressful than not taking vacations. The core concern doesn’t involve the stress of dragging the kids across the desert with a rabid dog or the back pain of sleeping on the in-law’s foldout couch.

The real apprehension around taking vacations often deals with (1) the amount of work piling up while gone, (2) missing important decision making process, and (3) not being able to defend against a work bully. To avoid these pains, people will give up unused vacation time and show up for meetings while on paid time off. Some might argue this shows real dedication, but as the article above proves, this is most likely creating a situation where the lack of a recharge will start to slowly take little bites from your mental health. (And hence, the weak piranha analogy is revealed.)

Some people deal with this by hooking up to the corporate email on vacation and just checking important emails while gone. (Absolute time boxing is essential.) This may seem counterintuitive, but for some, the decreased pressure can make the vacation more relaxing. I’ve seen others setup a designated substitute (possible a trusted peer or senior employee) while gone, who can make decisions and defend against a tear-down artist. This method has the added effect of building trust relationships with others in the group, which can ease the pressure during future vacations.

Another tactic for those having difficulty with time away from the office is to schedule vacation time when others are likely out of the office. While somewhat limiting to the family schedule, the chances important decisions are being made are lessened, and the amount of work piling up is often significantly decreased. Along the same lines of adopting one’s schedule, I’ve seen people take a series of 3-5 day vacations (ex. Fridays off for Nov and Dec), such that some time is spent in the office every week. Granted, short stints of time away may not completely clear one’s mind; it’s better than taking no time away or being tormented while sitting on the beach.

After eating whole wheat bread for well over 10 years, I may have finally switched to white bread. I was recently introduced to Whitewheat and have been very impressed with the taste and nutritional qualities. It is lower in calories and higher in fiber than the fancy whole wheat bread I was eating before the switch. In fact, it’s good enough to make grilled cheese sandwiches that taste normal. The good news is Whitewheat can be purchased at HEB and other regular grocery stores. If you like white bread but don’t like the sugar and lack of anything healthy, I highly recommend it.

Apparently, nutritionists (including my neighbor, who is a nutritionist) are now strongly recommending fish oil for healthy living. Eating fish over red meat has been highly preferred for many years due to the lower fat content and the benefits of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. Unfortunately, much of the fish I prefer is also high in mercury, so taking fish oil supplements looks like a good alternative, and after researching this, there appears to be very little to contradict the health benefits, such as often the case with other supplements. As a skeptic on vitamins in general, the only other two vitamins/minerals that I recommend and take regularly are the following:

Vitamin C
Glucosamine

The trick to buying fish oil is to make sure it’s coated so that it is absorbed in the intestines and not the stomach, so that there is no taste in the mouth. After trying fish oil for a while (~6 months), I’ll write a follow-up to this post with any noticeable benefits or side effects.

I really enjoyed this article in the Austin American-Statesman about how much is too much to run. The bottom line is that you can run as much as you want, and the reality is that 99.99% of most people won’t even be able to come close to over doing it. Granted, this assumes you are healthy enough to exercise (i.e. walk) and slowly build up your stamina (i.e. not running 10 miles on your first day out).

This rule applies to just about all forms of exercise, even though there are a few skeptics who have seen a 60 Minutes special on an obsessive person who over did it. Anything under 2 hours of exercise per day is still considered recreational exercise, and squeezing 30 minutes a day is a stretch for most. I recommend alternating between various types of exercise to prevent injuries and increase motivation, but if fear of exercising is preventing a regular visit to the gym or a trip around the block, think again.

Someone recently told me that you can tell whether you are eating too much salt if your sweat burns your eyes. I found this interesting because I thought every person’s sweat burned his/her eyes, but after asking around, this apparently is not so.

Because of this and a documentary I saw about the risks of salt intake, I recently started loosely tracking how much sodium I was consuming. Thus far, I’ve been kind of surprised in the high amount of sodium in some innocent things like salsa, which I love.

While I was clicking around, I found this link from the Salt Institute. According to them, you can eat as much salt as you want. Talk about checking your sources…

As an avid runner, one of the things I often think about is when I see other runners in the street when there is a sidewalk next to the road.  Granted, everyone has a personal preference and may feel better in the street for various reasons; however, I would offer two contrarian reasons to consider switching to the sidewalk.  First, the sidewalk is further from the cars; therefore, it’s just safer in most respects.  Second, running in the street may be placing extra stress on your body.  This is because most streets have a slope as the street stretches to the curb, while most sidewalks are relatively flat.  Running on an angled surface puts the body in an awkward position for an already jarring form of exercise.  If you’re still not convinced, please drop me a comment explaining why, just to satisfy my curiosity.  :-)