post – Page 24 – Speak Easy

Meditation observations: Reactivity

Today’s meditation session was on observing, noting and not-reacting to distractions.

There were three kinds of stimuli causing distractions – external sounds, body sensations and thoughts.

Chewie made some noise a few times while I was mediating. These sounds were the easiest distraction to recover from.

I felt a bit of a tinge in the lower back, and some funny sensations in fingers. These too were relatively easy and quick to recover from.

There were thoughts. Lots of thoughts, mostly about people and things that I would rather not think about. These were the hardest to recover from. And a few of them recurred during the session.

There was progress made though. By the end of the session, I was able to have longer sustained periods of focus without distractions. I noticed this (does noticing this and feeling happy about it count as a distraction?). And, on this very rare occasion, I wanted the session to go on for longer than it did :) Continue reading Meditation observations: Reactivity

TIL: What is ‘1 + 1 =’

Soham asked us this question yesterday. He wanted four answers.

Everyone got two immediately: 2 & 11.

I gave him one that he didn’t know: 3.

He gave us two we couldn’t have figured out: Window, 6.

These three answers – 3, 6 and window – are why I love spending time with him when he’s not playing a video game.

Continue reading TIL: What is ‘1 + 1 =’

Target for 2019 – Rank within top 50 at Guildford Parkrun

My PB at Guildford Parkrun is 23:12, and my best ranking is 77.
My current time at Guildford Parkrun is 25 mins (5:00 min/km), and ranking is near 120.

To rank in the top 50, I would need to achieve a time of 22 mins or lower. This would require running at an average pace of 4:24 min/km.

Losing 3 mins will not be easy. It’s a good target – challenging but not impossible.

Continue reading Target for 2019 – Rank within top 50 at Guildford Parkrun

Dudley & I are similar #44: Bed wetting

Doodles urinates in his sleep. We’d seen a small puddle on the floor or cushion when he woke up, but were not sure if it was water (he splashes a lot of it around the house), drool (he’s a dog) or urine.

Urine trickling down Dudley's leg while he's deep asleep — Urine trickling down Dudley’s leg while he’s deep asleep

Then I noticed this. I was working, and he was sleeping on the carpet behind me. During a break, I turned around to stretch and noticed the drops on his leg. That was my confirmation. A few days later Amit also confirmed that Sm had noticed it happening.

Duds went for a check-up on Monday. They ran a few tests – checking for infection, inflammation, and stones. All came negative. The current hypothesis from the vet is that this could be behavioural.

Duds’ uber loving day care lady, Sue, suddenly passed away a few months ago. He spent a few days at home with me and his mom. And then they had to start sending him to a new day care woman.

Sue was a lovely woman – friendly, chatty, crazy about most dogs (but specially labradors), and always spoiling dogs with swims and treats. She was one of my favourite people around.

Dudley loved her like crazy. But he didn’t just lose her. He lost all the dogs he used to spend his days with – Tilly Mae, Daisy, Ralph, Archie and others. He lost all his friends.

We have a hypothesis that he may be missing her and his friends, and that may be subconsciously triggering his bed wetting. Continue reading Dudley & I are similar #44: Bed wetting

Tweaks for 2019 – Eat Slower

I eat very fast. I start preparing my food after R has started eating. 5 mins later I’ll start eating. I will have finished my food, rinsed my dishes, and often finished the dessert before she finishes eating. Yes she’s a slow eater. But it only highlights how fast I eat.

If we are watching a serial on the TV, I finish food before the starting credits are over. If we are watching a football match, Ole Gunnar’s Man United are still shaking the opponents hands before the whistle by the time I finish eating. They’ve scored 2 goals by the time R finishes eating.

Eating fast had its advantages growing up in a big joint family. It meant being able to go for a second serving quicker – before the favourite dishes got over. It also meant being able to finish food quickly to get away from prickly adults and back to fun/play/book/isolation. An ability to eat fast also meant that when forced to eat dishes I didn’t like, I could quickly swallow them after chewing just twice.

I want to eat slow.
To enjoy the food more – keep the food longer in my mouth so I can feel the taste longer, taste more of the juices.
To eat and digest better – chew the food longer, into smaller bits so it digests better.
And so that I eat less – ensure more of the food has reached the belly, and registered with the brain before I finish the first serving. Fewer, smaller second servings will be the result, hopefully. Continue reading Tweaks for 2019 – Eat Slower

My Morning Routine

(Inspired by one of my regular haunts: the ‘My Morning Routine’ blog)

What is your morning routine?

I wake up between 04:45 and 05:15. I do some ankle stretch exercises while lying in the bed. To save myself from checking email, news, or another distraction, I use the ankle stretch time to sync my watch (Fenix 3) with the Garmin app. This shows me how much, and what quality sleep I got.

Then I go downstairs and drink half a tumbler of warm water with half a lime squeezed in. By the time I finish the water, my dog is up and about. We go out to the backyard for his morning rituals. This takes 5-10 mins, depending on whether the moon is still visible (he spends 5 mins barking at it, and getting told off by me).

After we return indoors, he goes off to sleep, and I make my coffee. I make the coffee the slow way. Grind the beans, heat the water, place the wet filter and ground beans in the clever dripper, and then pour over the warm water. I then place the lid on, letting it brew for 4-5 mins. I use this time to walk around, wake up the body, and do some step raises.

Usually, by the time the coffee is ready, I am wide awake – both in the head and in the muscles. I now head upstairs with the coffee and a tumbler of water, ready to start the work day.

I schedule the first 30 mins for coffee and catching up – basically gathering my thoughts, remembering where I left yesterday, and thinking of the top highlights I want to focus on today. I also use this time to lay out my calendar for the day (A sample is in the screenshot attached). I schedule 30 mins for all this, but it rarely takes more than 10 mins.

I then work for ~3 hours, usually from 06:00 to 10:00, with an hour’s break somewhere in between for loo and more ankle & calf exercises. Around 10, I take Tango for a walk followed by some back and core exercises. By 11:30 I am back upstairs working for another 2-3 hours. Continue reading My Morning Routine

Polarising

Some British acquaintances were asking about Indian politics and Narendra Modi. I told them my opinion of him is strongly biased (I abhor him), but I struggled to come up with the correct, unbiased term to describe him.

It’s not controversial, extremist, illiberal or nationalist. Divisive is close, but that’s not it either.

The correct term to describe him, in my opinion, is polarising.

People who know anything about him may not agree on any of those previous terms. However, most people who know anything about him – supporters or opponents** – will agree on this one term: he is polarising.

Continue reading Polarising

One up, one down. At least I’m alive.

The Up

Went for my first run since early May. Ran just 5K, but had to take 2 breaks to let the HR come down.

The good bit: Most of the external-focused running muscles worked fine. The ankle whose injury had stopped running felt completely normal. The achilees in the other foot tinged a bit occasionally, but nothing extraordinary. Will ice it tonight.

The ok bit: It’s been just a couple of hours, and my quads (?!) are giving an indication of DOMS already. Could it be because I was lifting my knees while trying to pick up the feet? Or is it just that they’ve not been worked at all since the last spinning class in early August?

The bad bit: HR was high. Way too high for such a short run in cool temperatures. It was a clear indication of how much aerobic fitness I’ve lost in these months. Lots of work to get it back before London.

The Down

When heading down for the run, I turned off the heater in the office. I’d kept it at low for Chewie – who seemed to be feeling a bit cold.

When I returned upstairs 2.5 hours later, the room was boiling. Instead of switching off the low button, I’d turned on the high button – so the electric heater was working at full power for 2.5 hours. The digital temperature gauge read 39ºC :/

My office room is small enough to become uncomfortably warm in 10 mins. After two hours at full power, it was boiling – worse than the worst of summer. The Macbook was so hot that it took nearly 2 mins to show the lock screen!

I’ve been sitting here with the window open for 20 mins, and the temperature still reads 31ºC.

There may be a good amount of damage to the electricity bill.
Photo by Brandon Bynum on Unsplash

I’m still alive

Early in the run, the HR reading said 232 bpm! My heart was working, but not that hard. It was just the usual ‘cold air meets HR strap’ f-up.

Later in the run, the reading said 187 bpm, and I could feel the heart struggling to keep pumping. That was when I took my first break.

That was nothing compared to how hard the heart beat when I came upstairs half-an-hour ago and realised what had happened. Glad I wasn’t wearing the HR monitor anymore, or it may have given a reading to give me a stroke!

Anyway, the heart didn’t stop, and I didn’t burn down the house. I’ll call this afternoon a win.

A flat(tening) week…

Hearing therapy session got cancelled – Jen called in sick :(
I really needed this session – we’d made good progress in the previous session, and I was still reeling from Sunday’s mess.

Weight has been trending up dramatically, after three weeks of heading down. Sunday’s gorging at the party, Monday’s cake feast, and yesterday’s gallons of red wine – all contributed. Culprit was clearly a weak will.

Clutter free is stagnating – growth burst is over, and user numbers have been up and down since the US Thanksgiving.

Not enough users are signing up for premium support subscribtions. If the trend continues, I’ll have to cull time allotment to, if not kill entirely, the extensions. 40,000 users aren’t worth anything if even 1% of them don’t think these are worth paying.

Not a good week, so far.

The upside: week’s not over.

— Ever the optimist :)

Please don’t go…

My favourite email client, Inbox by Gmail, is officially on its last legs. I’ve known about it since Google announced it a few months ago, but this message drove it in today :(

It’s a sad start to a sad day.

Screenshot 2018-11-14 at 08.38.22

I’ve been humming this in my head all morning…