I always find it impressive how some people can just unashamedly sleep on public transport.
I think it might be because I snore like a buzzsaw the last decade plus and therefore are mindful of falling asleep anywhere I am not wearing a CPAP mask. Still, I do find it impressive and I wonder if part of people's ability to do this in Finland is that they are so trusting of other people. I wonder if the same people would fall asleep on a train in Moscow, New York, or Ankara. Public transport in Finland is good though, with the buses, trains and trams all being comfortable and clean. It isn't necessarily cheap though. I am off to the middle of nowhere for client sessions today.
Which also means I am not going to be moving that much, as after a couple hours in transit, I will largely be stuck in a meeting room for several hours, and then a couple hours transiting home again. It works out to about a 16 hour round trip, for about five hours of contact time. I could do it remotely, but it waters down the relationships too heavily, so I try to get face-to-face as often as possible. Anything to make more of an impact.
And speaking of impacts and activity, I made a change to my activity metrics in my Oura ring app to see what kind of difference it would make. I have been pretty active over the last month consistently surpassing my activity goals significantly, but it was counting steps. When I didn't beat it, it doesn't mean I wasn't active, it was more that what I was active doing, wasn't stepping. For instance, strength workouts at the gym generate few steps. Despite a slow start to the year with winter, I am still averaging 102% completion.
The change I made was instead of counting steps (it factors in other things too), I moved it to calories burned from activity. It estimates total calories burned passively, but I am going to see if I can burn a significant amount through direct activity. At the moment, I only have metrics on the total burn. And again, it has been increasing throughout the year. And again, these are estimates. I am not sure about the accuracy, but as long as they are consistently tracked, it is a decent enough guide.
As you can see from both graphs, there has been quite a jump through July and August, which is attributed to the work I have been doing in the basement. And, while the ring has started tracking the activity better in the last few months without me having to put it in manually, it is still missing bits and pieces here and there. That is fine. The goal for me in regard to this is just be more aware of when and how I am moving and more importantly, when I am not.
Sedentary lifestyles are killers, right?
And what I have noticed is that while I regularly exercise at the gym, it just isn't enough for me. I feel better when I have worked myself more to the bone mentally and physically, than when I keep energy in reserve. Reserve energy is fine if I have to run from a hungry lion, but the thing with human energy is, we can't store it for very long - except as fat. And the more energy we have stored as fat, the easier and larger the meal for the lion.
I see it the same for mental energy, where I feel that due to our evolution to limit thinking by pushing things into habitual activity, we end up "saving" our mental energy when it cannot be stored at all. In my own experience, I used to sleep poorly until I started spending a lot more mental energy during the day. And then, I would wake up feeling more refreshed and with more mental energy to spend.
What are we saving it for otherwise?
And I reckon due to changes in technology and culture, we end up spending far less mental energy than we could and likely should be spending, Instead of learning new things, expanding our understanding, investing into creating, we sit down in front of a screen and thoughtlessly consume. I remember back at university the metric that only 3% of wealthy people watch reality television, but 70% of poor people. I assume that this has further polarised and while it might not be reality television, we could insert social media scrolling, YouTube videos, and celebrity podcasts.
And I think that often, we mistakenly believe that what we are consuming is helping us in some way. Perhaps it is in someway, but how? As I see it, if it isn't helping me change my behaviours toward what is more likely to assist me to reach my goals, it isn't helping. It is fine to check-out for a bit to relax, but how much checking-out is required before it becomes detrimental? It is a bit like eating dessert - now and then it is fantastic, all the time is incredibly unhealthy. Are our consumer behaviours adding a little sweetness, or is it an eating disorder?
Whatever it is for you, that is your journey. For me though, after lots of trial and error, I can feel the difference between changes in my behaviour, yet I still struggle to keep them on track. It is strange that the things that make me feel better long-term, are still the hardest to maintain. We seemed evolved to favour the feeling in the moment, perhaps because for the majority of our evolution, that is all we had. We couldn't save food, so we ate it nearly straight away. We couldn't save much at all, so we consumed while it was there. Nowadays though, we can save so much, but we end up saving ourselves in ways that harm us, rather than help us.
All we need do, is move a little more.
As I have mentioned earlier, we are made up of four key areas. Physical, mental, emotional and social. For the majority of us, I believe we keep on limiting ourselves in these areas, contracting, rather than expanding, because it feels more comfortable to do so. But, that feeling is more out of security and fear than growth. It is avoidance of what is uncomfortable, avoidance or uncertainty, the desire to be stable. If we attentively and consistently expand a little in each of these areas, we would become accustomed to the feeling of growth. A move toward, rather than a run away from process.
We are always in transit.
Are we going somewhere, or avoiding somewhere?
Taraz
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