Daily life: My health (2012 wrap-up: 1/6)
Dec. 13th, 2012 12:27 am![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
duskpeterson"[Alice Rossi] has done some of the most interesting research to date on behavioral effects of the human menstrual cycle. Using precise methods of measurement and a complex mathematical model borrowed from econometrics, she showed that there are mood cycles in college women that can be predicted from the menstrual cycle. For example, she identified a rise of negative feelings in the women during the luteal phase of their cycles - the period beginning four or five days after ovulation, when the steroid progesterone is at its monthly peak. More interesting and more unusual was Rossi's inclusion of a group of men as comparison subjects. While she did not discover a male cycle - no one really has either, despite some clues pointing in that direction - she did find that men have the same number of days per month of physical discomfort as women, but that some, at least, of the women's discomfort days were predictable from the menstrual cycle; they usually occur during menstruation. (For the reader who still believes that menstrual distress disqualifies women from such positions as airline pilot and President, consider whether you would want your plane - or your country - piloted by someone who has a few days a month of distress that come around like clockwork, or someone with the same number of days of distress arriving randomly.)"
--Melvin Konner: The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints in the Human Spirit (1982). Quoted simply because I don't have any other health-related quotations handy.
As you may have noticed, I've been way to busy to write daily life entries recently. As a result, I have so much accumulated news that I've decided it would be best if I report it all in a series of daily posts summarizing the year's events. This one is the first of six.
My health has been superb this fall, compared to what came before. The combination of eating grated ginger at every meal, alternating between deskwork and housework/walking, and sticking to a whole-foods, nearly vegan, gluten-free diet seems to be working. My inflammation - which, as some of you will recall, was crippling me in 2010 - has been diminishing this fall in a noticeable fashion, with the result that I'm breathing better, sleeping better, walking better, and sitting better. (Some of you will remember that, for a full year and a half, I couldn't sit at all.) I'm still not entirely out of the woods, and certain aspects of my illness may turn out to be a lifelong chronic condition, but I can do things now - such as carry a few books home from the library - that I thought I'd never be able to do again.
My condition continues to be undiagnosed. Because of my apparent sensitivity to either wheat or gluten, my doctor and I agree that I should be tested for celiac disease. However, that requires me to go back on gluten products, and I just don't have time right now to be sick.
As for my Internet addiction (that falls under the category of mental health), I've made tremendous progress this year. Partly it's due to the accumulated efforts of twelve years of hard work (my addiction began in 1995, and I've been fighting it full-time since 2000), partly it's due to the help of my new counsellor, and partly it's due to my decision to focus on what I need to do instead of surfing mindlessly. So I've been focussing on getting a certain amount of hours of work done each day. As long as I get those hours done, then I can go on the Internet for fun. This means I'm still online more than I should be (in terms of keeping my mind uncluttered), but I'm offline enough to get most of my work done. That's a lot better than what came before.
--Melvin Konner: The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints in the Human Spirit (1982). Quoted simply because I don't have any other health-related quotations handy.
As you may have noticed, I've been way to busy to write daily life entries recently. As a result, I have so much accumulated news that I've decided it would be best if I report it all in a series of daily posts summarizing the year's events. This one is the first of six.
My health has been superb this fall, compared to what came before. The combination of eating grated ginger at every meal, alternating between deskwork and housework/walking, and sticking to a whole-foods, nearly vegan, gluten-free diet seems to be working. My inflammation - which, as some of you will recall, was crippling me in 2010 - has been diminishing this fall in a noticeable fashion, with the result that I'm breathing better, sleeping better, walking better, and sitting better. (Some of you will remember that, for a full year and a half, I couldn't sit at all.) I'm still not entirely out of the woods, and certain aspects of my illness may turn out to be a lifelong chronic condition, but I can do things now - such as carry a few books home from the library - that I thought I'd never be able to do again.
My condition continues to be undiagnosed. Because of my apparent sensitivity to either wheat or gluten, my doctor and I agree that I should be tested for celiac disease. However, that requires me to go back on gluten products, and I just don't have time right now to be sick.
As for my Internet addiction (that falls under the category of mental health), I've made tremendous progress this year. Partly it's due to the accumulated efforts of twelve years of hard work (my addiction began in 1995, and I've been fighting it full-time since 2000), partly it's due to the help of my new counsellor, and partly it's due to my decision to focus on what I need to do instead of surfing mindlessly. So I've been focussing on getting a certain amount of hours of work done each day. As long as I get those hours done, then I can go on the Internet for fun. This means I'm still online more than I should be (in terms of keeping my mind uncluttered), but I'm offline enough to get most of my work done. That's a lot better than what came before.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-13 06:01 am (UTC)-Albert