I’m Sorry, But Your Mother Was Right

Every Friday is 11 Things day at Living Behind the Curve.
Are you feeling run down? Tired? Do you have that not-so-fresh feeling? Are you avoiding your friends and coworkers because you are certain that if someone so much as thinks of coughing in the same room as you, you’re going to get sick? You could say that the common cold or depression is the great health blight upon the modern world, but I say that it’s generalized malaise — I don’t know about the rest of the world, but we Americans don’t take care of ourselves at all, and we suffer the consequences by feeling like our filters are clogged most of the time. That’s me in a nutshell this week, so I thought I’d bring you my 11 Simple Frugal Methods for Curing Your Crappy Feeling. Now pay attention, because your mother has been telling you this same exact stuff for years.

1. Get more sleep. Almost nobody gets enough sleep at night, yours truly included. Get to bed just an hour earlier every night and see if that doesn’t help you feel a little better.

2. Get better sleep. Sometimes, more hours aren’t enough. If you’re snoring at night, or aren’t breathing properly, you’ll be working hard while you’re sleeping just to breathe. There are plenty of over-the-counter treatments for snoring, as well as decongestants and anti-histamines available that may help. You may also want to talk to your doctor if this is an issue. Another thing to consider, if you wake up with a sore back, you’re probably sleeping in pain. Try rotating and flipping your mattress, getting a mattress pad, or even consider buying a new bed. Your bed is supposed to be comfortable, and it’s worth the price.

3. Get more exercise. If you’re feeling rundown, listless, and generally blah, try moving a little. People weren’t designed to sit at a desk and stare at a computer all day, and I’m supremely guilty of this one. Exercising gets your everything moving, and encourages your body to repair and rebuild itself. It’s sort of like taking out the trash and fixing the holes in the walls of your house. Exercise also releases endorphins and other happy chemicals in your brain that make you feel good, which also helps.

4. Cut down on caffeine. I loves me some coffee, and so does everyone else. It’s yummy and creamy and gives that desperately-needed boost in the morning to do what needs to be done. Unfortunately, a raging caffeine addiction borks your body’s attempts to tell you “I’m tired, dumbass!” and generally provides artificial energy that rampages right over your physical needs. Coffee, and the wide variety of garbage we flavor it with, is also kinda tough on your digestion, but drinking a little less coffee and doing a little more in your day-to-day so you don’t need it will make you feel a little better.

5. Cut down on smoking. Same as with coffee. Everyone knows it’s bad for you. I will absolutely never tell an addict to quit their vice, but if it weren’t bad for you, it wouldn’t be a vice. Try to cut down. If you don’t want to or can’t cut down, try to improve the quality of your tobacco. In my experience, the really good premium tobacco is less bad for you than cheap tobacco. None of it is particularly good for you, but I will write an article in the future of the different levels of bad that different tobacco products posses. My hanging should be scheduled about three days after that, so watch this space for more information.

6. Eat more fresh vegetables. They’re full of vitamins and crap, but more importantly, they scrub out your colon and make you regular. Nothing makes you feel like crud than a cruddy colon, and honestly, what’s more enjoyable than a good poo?

7. Eat more red meat. This goes out especially to the women in the crowd. Keeping your iron levels up is kinda vital to having energy, and since women have higher iron requirements and are prone to building up and then expelling the blood-rich temporary lining in our uteri (uteruses?) it’s that much more important for us. Dark green veggies will also supply iron, but isn’t it great to know that, now and then, you can hoist a good steak to your health? And lets not forget those vital B vitamins, either!

8. Eat less crap. Junk food is bad for you, but it tastes so damn good! While all that weird post-modern food science voodoo in the ingredient list probably isn’t helping you any, when you eat junk food you’re not eating good-for-you-food, and so it’s sort of a double-whammy against your general well-being. This would also be a good place to mention multivitamins. If you’re not going to eat healthy, at least try to supplement your crap diet with supplements.

9. Get out more. Humans are social beings. Do you remember, in college, you’d stay up till stupid-o-clock in the morning debating philosophy or social science or music, and how intelligent and deep you felt, and how satisfying it was to binge on your snobby thought of the week? Simply interacting with people and talking will flood your brain with all those same happy chemicals that exercise does. You need to flex your brain, too, and conversation is one of the most efficient ways to do it.

10. Check for allergies. If you’re still feeling like crap, consider consulting with an allergist. There are uncounted walking wounded wandering through life with undiagnosed food allergies that don’t realize chronic malaise is a problem. There are rarely pleasant outcomes to allergist appointments — consider being told that you’re allergic to chocolate, or that you need to avoid wheat or soy for the rest of your life, and good luck to you if you do. If you search the web, there are plenty of elimination diets and other methods for self-diagnosing allergies, and if done properly I’ve seen them be very effective, but I won’t recommend one because I’ve never tried doing that sort of thing.

11. Have more sex. It combines interpersonal communication, exercise, usually a nice dinner, and some hard sleep afterwards. What’s not to love? Even an intimate evening for one helps get the blood and those wonderful sexy brain chemicals flowing. And yes, I advocate regular masturbation for all people, regardless of relationship status, but that’s another post. As long as you’re not doing anything enormously stupid, give it a shot. If absolutely nothing else, an orgasm is cheaper than a sleep aid.

If you’ve got any good tips to add, you know what to do. I’m going to bed now.