And don't forget to use streak.ly for all those habits you want to do daily ;)
"Streak.ly is coming soon."
Maybe you should promote it after it launches.
Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
81–90 of 124 posts
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#82For me, spending time with my kids (ages: 0, 2, 4) produces a similar results as exercise and meditation do for Alex: - "combats stress" - "always feel calmer than when I started" - "feel like I’ve got my head screwed on straight" - "makes my work time more productive" YMMV, but this is what works for me.
When they hit 2/4/6 or 4/6/8 I'll be curious if you'll say the same thing. :) I know there are many parents who, after having to put up with kids and their behavior/mindsets long enough, without break, feel like they are starting to go crazy from the stress, headaches and heartaches they cause. Plus the guilt from having those negative feelings and reactions from their own children, so it snowballs and yo-yos even.
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Me too. For a little while it feels productive and nice because I often have good ideas, but then after half an hour or so, I want my brain to shut up so I can sleep. A friend of mine told me she has a similar issue and has a special meditation that she does in bed to wind her brain down. I should email her, but if anyone has ways they deal with this issue, I'd love to hear them.
I absolutely do not think about stuff like that before I sleep - I try to spend at least an hour winding down with a book and peppermint tea or something similar. I do however think about tough issues when I'm half asleep in the morning, reaching for the snooze button. (Sometimes it's counterproductive, making me want to snooze more to make the world go away, but I reach some surprising insights here - and then cryst…
I too use the book trick :) so to speak . Just 30 minutes of reading some SF before I go to sleep helps a lot. I then tend to think about the characters in the book or I imagine being on another planet :) . It really helps when I do that.
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#8490 minutes gym sessions? That's ridiculous. 45 and you should be out of there! You're on the way to over train which will lead to negative results on your body. 45 max and you will feel so much more energized. Not to mention that there is no way a geek can keep up with 90 minutes of gym 3 or 4 times a week without loosing his mind and dropping the idea. Also dropping carbs is a very bad idea, reducing it is good. But…
In addition to the "zero work commute" lifehack another one I like is the "zero gym" exercise hack. The idea is you find ways to exercise (cardio, strength and agility) that don't require going to some fancy gym facility. Just exercise in your home, or near it, or in or near your place of work. The hack is that you cut out #1 the membership costs and #2 the time spent traveling to/from the gym. By cutting out the money & time costs you reduce the number of possible excuses you have for not doing it. Plus, you decrease the amount of non-productice/wasted time you spend each day. And if you save time driving to/from a gym, you also reduce expose to accident risk, reduce contribution to traffic, pollution, etc. as a bonus.
Just by the fact that you're in a body of fresh air (which is all that your lungs require), and in a gravitational field, and can move your body around (all your body/muscles require), there are plenty of exercises accessible to you. And they require no special separate equipment or paid services. Walking is dead simple, it's practical, you have to do it anyway, and it buys you a lot. Pushups are simple, they exercise a lot of muscles, require no fancy equipment, and buy you a lot of effect. Kicking. Lots of other motions and activities like this. I highly recommend people first try incorporating this sort of exercise into their life first, and only if that utterly fails for them should they consider moving on to a subscription-and-commute-requiring gym.
Oh it also has the benefit of requiring greater willpower and time management, so it has psychological self-improvement benefits as well.
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#85Exercise is basic necessary maintenance required by the human body. You either do it and have a happy/healthy body, or you don't. Eating healthy is just as important, separated into two categories: overall caloric intake, and nutritional content. Car analogies are a dime a dozen in computing, but they apply here as well. Not exercising is like changing the oil in your car every 10,000-15,000 miles, instead of every 3…
I don't exercise for one simple reason - its a temporary solution to a permanent problem and as a geek I hate, hate, hate those with a passion.
I don't mind things that are hard, or things that are difficult or things that take a long time or even things that are all three; what I hate is things that doesn't last - once you learned to drive, you can drive, etc.
Combine that with the fact that it sucks doing exercise and you have the reason I don't do it.
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#86Why is HN so obsessed with exercise? I'm quite happy as a lazy slob. I ran track and x country in high school, but I didn't like exercise then and I still don't. I'm sure it would probably make me healthier, but it just isn't worth the discomfort to me. Stop making me look bad, guys.
I have never liked exercise, and I have never liked dieting, but I had a rude wakeup call about the wages of "curry and a fried porkchop" four days a week plus a sedentary lifestyle a few years ago. My physician said that, at that rate, I would be lucky to make it to 30, despite the fact that I was skinny like a beanpole. So I started going to the gym. I despise actually being at the gym and exercising. But it makes…
If you where thin, why would you die before you where 30? I mean, heart attacks, etc are all correlated with fat.
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does your city have a bicycle trail, has only light traffic, or are you hyperventilating on car exhaust fumes? I never really got why would people cycle/jog on busy roads.
Being knocked off my bicycle by a car door finally convinced me, after too many uncomfortably close encounters, that I was somehow invisible to drivers. Today I believe that for my well-being the risks of biking far outweigh any potential benefits.
1. You, the cyclist, need to be driving very defensively. Read the road and always assume you have not been seen and take action to do fix that.
Here in the tiny streets of Cambridge, UK, I sometimes feel cycling in the middle of the street is the best option. BTW, an equally big risk to cyclists is pedestrians who, by sheer stupidity or collectively having death wishes, start crossing the road without looking. It's worse when it's a group.
2. Get some high visibility gear and get a helmet and pads. I also use two sets of lights: the reds at the back are placed one high (my back or helmet) and one low, and the front lights are angled differently to give me full coverage for a good distance.
The cheapest and lightest way for visibility gear is the "jacket" type that you wear over your clothes.
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#88I ride my bicycle just about everywhere: to the office, grocery store, restaurants, everywhere. It's a great way to get exercise and doesn't cut into your schedule all that much, because due to traffic lights you can often get to where you are going on a bike only slightly slower than in a car. Also starting the day after my 7 mile commute is fantastic, my brain is rocking and ready.
My problem with riding my bike to the office is that I arrive all sweaty. I can change my T-shirt (I don't have to wear a suit), but I'll still smell afterwards.
Thanks to the London bike scheme I can now take a bike home in the evening without having to ride one to work in the morning.
A similar scheme would be great in Manhattan, the rides between a lot of high density places (including Brooklyn and Manhattan) are pretty short. At 70k people per square mile they could put in a bike pick up/drop off point on every block. Plus it might give them enough critical mass to shut off some lanes as cycle paths.
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#89Just a small tip: don't stretch before strength training. You want the blood to remain in your muscles for the duration of your workout. Warm up by doing some cardio instead.
This is also a myth.
As someone who has trained a lot of regular people, some are incredibly tight, to the point that they will not be able to perform movements correctly without stretching prior to the workout. Sure, they don't stretch right off the bat--a 5-10 "active warmup" is great--but sometimes stretching before a workout is necessary. It's not like we're dealing with elite athletes here; no one on HN is going for an 800 lb squat. And even in that realm, Jim Wendler of EliteFTS.com recommends static stretching prior to workouts.
Even better than stretching or at least as good, which I don't think anyone has mentioned, is myofascial release. Basically it's a self massage with a lacrosse ball or a foam roller. Mix a little bit of this soft-tissue work into your regular stretching and you'll see huge results.
Re: Staying Healthy and Sane At a Startup
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have never liked exercise, and I have never liked dieting, but I had a rude wakeup call about the wages of "curry and a fried porkchop" four days a week plus a sedentary lifestyle a few years ago. My physician said that, at that rate, I would be lucky to make it to 30, despite the fact that I was skinny like a beanpole. So I started going to the gym. I despise actually being at the gym and exercising. But it makes…
If you where thin, why would you die before you where 30? I mean, heart attacks, etc are all correlated with fat.
I shouldn't have to say this, but correlation != causation.