Hello! Welcome to today's daily quarantine blog. Today is Wednesday, April 29 and I have only 2 entries left of my 30 day blog'antine goal while I work from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
We had another successful breakthrough with Bean yesterday! She let Eddie come right up to her and give her unlimited pats. It was wonderful! She is relaxing into life with us so rapidly. I'm grateful for this little ball of black fur that looks at me with the most innocent and sincere eyes. She purrs loudly and often and plays non-stop every evening. I always thought purring was supposed to relax us humans? Something about the vibrations? There's no doubt that little Bean's affection is soothing to me. However, I'm stumped as to why my resting heart rate has gone up by almost 10 beats per minute in the last month! What's up with that?
After losing 40 pounds last year, I noticed my resting heart rate went down with the number on the scale. Along with all the exercise I was getting, I felt light on my feet and breezy in my lungs. Ironically, my exercise has skyrocketed since being quarantined at home. Anyone else feel like they are getting more time to work out now that we aren't at work all day? Between the daily walks, which have saved my sanity, and doing the premium fitbit coach program from my living room, my time spent actively has increased dramatically. I went from just barely making the recommended 150 minutes a week of aerobic exercise to almost 5 hours last week. I'm just stumped as to why, when this exact behavior has had the opposite effect in the past, my resting heart rate doesn't seem to be so restful lately.
I think this increase is due to many things. First of all, stress. Anxiety raises your heart rate and blood pressure. I am some what relieved that my blood pressure is immaculate as usual. It must be stress that's doing this, but I looked into my other behaviors to see if there was more answers. Turns out, snacking, is a contributor to rising heart rates. My beloved quarantine snacks!? OK, well not just snacking on anything, but in general saltier foods and heavy meals seem to lead to an increased heart rate. When I first noticed the heart rate rising trend last week, I cut out all caffeinated tea during the day except for one in the morning. Still didn't work. Then I looked at my snacks. hmm lot's of sugar and salt. Peanut butter filled pretzels, dried fruit, fresh veggies with hummus and of course fresh fruit as well. I guess the snacks haven't been too bad. I've also increased my mindfulness meditation sessions, especially focusing on deep breaths. Another factor I found while doing my research is the concept overtraining and how it affects your body. Let's get this straight, I'm working out everyday, but I am by no means over-training! Also, overtraining syndrome goes hand-in-hand with ignoring your body's need for recovery, especially in your muscles. I feel I'm taking care of this by foam rolling. Also there's the fact that I'm really not sore or stiff. I was a couple weeks ago! Now I feel pretty good, for the circumstances. I was telling Eddie the other day that I feel like I haven't fully, mentally and physically, relaxed since Peanut was still here and Covid-19 wasn't on my radar. This is probably the case for most of us, right?
My point in pondering all of this with you is that things are out of our control right now, and it sucks. I have to calm myself and realize I'm not going to understand all the ways this pandemic has affected me. Another odd occurrence? A huge increase in acne! WHAT?? I'm not even wearing makeup everyday! and with all this time at home, I'm being better than ever about my skin care regiment. I'm spending lots of time luxuriating in my Sephora splurges by massaging all my serums and creams into my skin using a pink quartz facial roller and Gua Sha. This pampering seems to have back-fired. As I'm typing this now, I have several pink spots scattered across my face, while I ask my skin's lord and savior Mario Badescu to heal these monstrosities. Again, I'm rambling, but I think all this focus inward has done slightly more harm than good. Yes, working out everyday, long term, great for you! Religiously applying SPF every morning? Also, good in the long run. But I'm running out of things to help me that don't rely on leaving my home or seeing other people. I'm confronted with what I already knew and worked so hard to fix. I must be social. I must have a part-time job or volunteer position that gets me out of the house and interacting with the community. and I absolutely must form bonds and friendships with other human beings. Not just cats. I added those things back into my life last year and the results were soaringly positive.
What are some changes, good or bad, that you've gone through in the last 30 days? I invite you to mull that over until I see you back here again tomorrow for my last blog'antine! Don't worry, I'll still be blogging once a week or so, maybe more! but I've got major future plans and goals to get going on and I can't wait to tell you about them tomorrow!
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