(no subject)
I am staying for a couple of days at Chabaneix and I forgot my WiFi box, so it’s a good time to catch up with some journaling.
My search for happiness turned into a touch of depression but I was determined not to go back on medication because it is so difficult to stop again due to the vertigo and brain zaps...obviously if it hadn’t lifted a bit I would have been obliged but for the moment I think I am getting through.
I have been trying to follow a health app called Noom. I like the daily messages and it got me thinking about how I could increase my exercise to something more strenuous than just walking, but that I could do with Marco. I was in InterSport looking for insoles when I saw that there was a special offer on Nordic Walking poles. I bought neither poles nor insoles, but came home and researched both.
Insoles
Apparently the French do 47% more sports now than 50 years ago, and this activity has been reflected in an increase in sport related injuries. Shock absorbing insoles actually cause injury because the feet have nerve endings designed to inform the body about the terrain and conditions and if they are protected from that information then people can put strain on other joints. Now insoles that are to provide support for arches are a good thing, they spread the weight more evenly and can prevent blisters or hard pads forming. So, now you know.
Nordic walking
This developed in countries which had snow for several months, and so people moved around on skies with poles. Once the snow had melted they would continue to use the poles in a similar fashion to help them walk faster and keep the muscles in shape. I have been trying with my ordinary poles...and I think that it’s a good way to work out and exercise Marco, but it is a lot harder than it sounds !
Another subject that has been occupying my mind is the intelligence of octopuses. I had been listening to the infinite monkey cage, and two shows in particular caught my imagination. One on dinosaurs and the other on animal intelligence.
Dinosaurs had a much longer history than I had realised, with the earliest ones being further away in time from the last ones than say a T-Rex from my iPad ! They were often covered in primitive feathers, more like ostriches say. And octopuses survived many mass extinctions, evolving away in a very different way to us, living short solitary lives, and yet using tools, thinking out solutions, having very complex eyes like our own. The programme pointed out that if alien intelligence did exist then octopuses remind us how very different it might be. Imagine if they lived more than two or three years, in groups that communicated... As someone who was left breathless after the description in Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la Mer... it’s certainly thought provoking.
My search for happiness turned into a touch of depression but I was determined not to go back on medication because it is so difficult to stop again due to the vertigo and brain zaps...obviously if it hadn’t lifted a bit I would have been obliged but for the moment I think I am getting through.
I have been trying to follow a health app called Noom. I like the daily messages and it got me thinking about how I could increase my exercise to something more strenuous than just walking, but that I could do with Marco. I was in InterSport looking for insoles when I saw that there was a special offer on Nordic Walking poles. I bought neither poles nor insoles, but came home and researched both.
Insoles
Apparently the French do 47% more sports now than 50 years ago, and this activity has been reflected in an increase in sport related injuries. Shock absorbing insoles actually cause injury because the feet have nerve endings designed to inform the body about the terrain and conditions and if they are protected from that information then people can put strain on other joints. Now insoles that are to provide support for arches are a good thing, they spread the weight more evenly and can prevent blisters or hard pads forming. So, now you know.
Nordic walking
This developed in countries which had snow for several months, and so people moved around on skies with poles. Once the snow had melted they would continue to use the poles in a similar fashion to help them walk faster and keep the muscles in shape. I have been trying with my ordinary poles...and I think that it’s a good way to work out and exercise Marco, but it is a lot harder than it sounds !
Another subject that has been occupying my mind is the intelligence of octopuses. I had been listening to the infinite monkey cage, and two shows in particular caught my imagination. One on dinosaurs and the other on animal intelligence.
Dinosaurs had a much longer history than I had realised, with the earliest ones being further away in time from the last ones than say a T-Rex from my iPad ! They were often covered in primitive feathers, more like ostriches say. And octopuses survived many mass extinctions, evolving away in a very different way to us, living short solitary lives, and yet using tools, thinking out solutions, having very complex eyes like our own. The programme pointed out that if alien intelligence did exist then octopuses remind us how very different it might be. Imagine if they lived more than two or three years, in groups that communicated... As someone who was left breathless after the description in Victor Hugo’s Les Travailleurs de la Mer... it’s certainly thought provoking.