Every healthy routine eventually turns into a mental prison
On letting oneself not run after working really hard to stop not running
Est. Read Time: 4 minutes. Read Time brought to you once again by the Ashburton Energy + Hair Logistics Group, in association with the Bradley Hills Bureau of Corrections + Housing.
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SHOWS
Saturday January 20th 7:30PM: The Hollywood Comedy
I’LL HAVE MORE SOON.
Hello Sternal Journalists!
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the beauty of a short-ass-run. I’ve been a runner for just over two decades now (wowza), but had in the past couple of years really let running go by the wayside and was having trouble getting back into it. My secret to finally get back into a routine was to to go for significantly shorter than normal runs.
Some people reached out to ask how short, so I will just say: some of these runs were one mile and two miles. If those sound like long runs to you, then congratulations, you are an even better short-ass-runner than I am.
And short-ass-runs have been extremely important! Over the past month and a half, by adding one mile each week, I’ve gotten my weekly mileage up to twenty-five and I’ve had a blast doing it.
I’ve also gotten very sore doing it because I’m not always doing it in the smartest way possible. I have waited until the latter half of the week to jam everything in there. I’ve way overloaded my long run to get it in under the wire. In short, I engaged in some unhealthy habits in an attempt to serve my healthy habit.
Which brings me to this week. This week, I broke my streak and only ran four miles. I had had a very busy week and also tried to incorporate some fun cross-training that was actually very painful and I probably did incorrectly. Even with all of this, on Friday I caught myself thinking,
“Okay, I gotta get to twenty six miles this week, so I could run eight miles a day for the next three days or just relax today and run twelve tomorrow and twelve the next day or maybe I can break it up into two-a-days-”
These were all slightly unwise but mostly reasonable ideas; I likely would be uninjured if I held myself to them. But I was very tired. And for the prior six weeks, my thirty-five year old body had been tired many times, but I told myself, You have to keep this up. This is good for your mental health. If you break the streak, you’ll fall apart.
And I think that was wise for a time. But what I remembered as I seriously contemplated doing back to back twelve milers is that habits are only good for your mental health as long as they’re good for your mental health. Every healthy routine, if adhered to for long enough, eventually turns into a mental prison. Journaling, meditation, drinking a certain amount of water. The cycle goes:
A) This thing makes me feel good! B) But I have to make time to do it so I’ll commit to doing it every day. C) Wow, doing this every day feels great. D) It is getting hard to do this every day, but I don’t want to give up doing the thing. E) I hate that I have to do this thing every day, but once upon a time it felt good so I have to cling to that because if I ever stop, I’ll never be able to do this thing I no longer enjoy anymore. F) I forgot to do it! It’s no longer important to me! G) What a relief. That did not make me feel great.
This is all to say that something I am trying to disengage from Snapchat Streak-style thinking and, therefore, this week opted for a new S.A.R. Serious Ass Relaxation. And I feel actually amazing. Now the exciting part will be seeing if I can actually get Sister Act 2: Back In The Habit next week, or if it actually will have completely derailed and ruined my progress.
Tune in next week! But for now…
Recommendations!
Poetic Justice. Song. This song is 12 years old (Jesus), but I recently listened to it for the first time in a while and I think (a) it might be Drake’s best verse ever and (b) Drake had a better verse than Kendrick. And I know that nobody will ever agree with me on either of those.
American Fiction. Movie. This had a lot more slow beach family drama than I expected, but it was overall an enjoyable watch and I loved all of the literati satire.
The Supernatural Power of “Swag Surfin.” Article. Swag Surfin(g) is in the news due to certain pop cultural tectonic plates. But as is often the case with Atlantan influence from the aughts, much context and history has been lost. This Fader article is a fun read if you’re curious about any of those things.
The Sunday Story: Mental Health Care Goes to Court. Podcast. This episode of NPR’s Up First has a great primer on California’s new CARE Court initiative, an attempt to help people with mental health and substance use disorders. Spoiler alert: it might not be as effective as is being pitched. But if you live in California, worth learning about however you feel!
The Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. Event. While we’re on the topic, I’m running the Mid City West portion of the Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. The count is a city-wide effort to understand the scope and shape of the current state of homelessness in LA, so as to (a) better distribute resources throughout the city and (b) qualify for very necessary HUD funding. If you’re available Thursday January 25th and live around Mid City, come join as a volunteer! More info once you sign up and/or I’m happy to answer any questions!
Alrighty!
That’s all for this week! I hope you give yourself a necessary break in a streak this week.
Much love!
Julian
P.S. I had no pics this week, so here’s a screenshot of the most accidentally-noir Yelp quote I’ve ever seen.
"Shawty check my dougie like she Patty Mayonnaise"