Month: October 2019

October 23, 2019 at 01:00PM by CWC I’m kind of a quitter. In middle school, I quit choir because I’m not a good singer. Quickly thereafter, I quit the violin because I’m—wait for it—bad at playing the violin. In high school, I quit soccer and track, and I bet you can now guess why. Throughout my life, I’ve grown skilled at knowing when to throw in the towel on pursuits that seem to be not much more than imminent dead ends. Being bad at something makes me want to stop immediately, and even if I stick with it, it’s with a begrudging attitude—just ask my trainer, who is forced to ignore my whines whenever he instructs me to run or do push-ups. But does only sticking with endeavors at which you excel preclude you from accessing a magical feeling akin to a runner’s high that comes with improvement and growth? Or when you feel like quitting, is it okay to go that route? After all, if something doesn’t make you happy, why shouldn’t you just find the thing that can be your thing? Well, when it comes to being big-time awful in any given pursuit, there are benefits to reap from simply leaning in and letting yourself be awful. “None of us is good at everything, so if you want to really love and respect yourself, you have to be comfortable being bad at some things,” says therapist Aimee Daramus, PsyD. In practice, though, being okay with mediocrity, or even

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October 23, 2019 at 03:00AM by CWC Whether you adore running or despise it, discovering interval training for the first time can feel straight-up serendipitous. After all, the number one complaint about pounding pavement is usually that it’s “so boring.” But that just isn’t the case with interval running, which keeps your body guessing mile after mile. “Interval running pushes your body to work through short bursts of tough efforts and to recover within a restricted amount of time. Then, it recruiting the body (and mind!!) to push you to that tough spot again,” says Melissa Wolfe, a coach at New York City’s Mile High Run Club. “The perception of tough efforts may be created using speed, hills, ratio of work to recovery, or a combination of those things.” “Interval running pushes your body to work through short bursts of tough efforts and to recover within a restricted amount of time. Then, it recruiting the body (and mind!!) to push you to that tough spot again.” —Melissa Wolfe, coach at Mile High Run Club On a physical level, interval-style workouts work head-to-toe magic. “Cardiovascular function improves, post-workout metabolism increases for an extended amount of time, muscle fibers build resiliency and quicker response, and you’ll experience increased endurance both aerobically and anaerobically. Simply put, interval training is an effective way to build your body’s tolerance to the demands of your goals—regardless of whether they’re distance, time, or overall fitness-based,” explains the runner. Those bodily benefits may be enticing enough to convince you

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October 23, 2019 at 02:00AM by CWC I’ve been feeding the void the past few months. Though I’m aware that reads as equal parts scary and sexual, it really just means I’ve using retail therapy to get me through a rough time. And while I’m a big advocate of the “treat yo’self” way of living, I recently caught myself veering into dangerously extra territory. When I caught myself thinking, You know what this bedroom needs? A Victorian fainting couch, I knew it was time to come up with a new emotional detachment strategy for self-soothing. Because void feeding ain’t cheap. Enter: A study recently published in the Society for Consumer Psychology that takes a cue from 2015’s Inside Out. The Pixar film examines how the psychological process of emotional detachment can ease your sadness…and help you make better choices. To that point, the study concluded that when you anthropomorphize your sadness, regarding it as an entity rather than just as an emotion, you’re less likely to make impulsive, void-feeding decisions. To test this, the researchers had one group of study participants write about sad experiences and instructed another group to anthropomorphize their sadness by writing about it as if it were a person. Both groups were then asked to select a side dish—salad or cheesecake—to accompany their lunch, and participants who anthropomorphized their sadness were more likely to end up on team salad. Of course, there’s no harm in enjoying cheesecake, but the results do make the case that by

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October 23, 2019 at 01:00AM by CWC The first time Sarah Agaton Howes laced up her sneakers and decided to go for a jog, she was admittedly self-conscious. Running wasn’t something she saw anyone doing on the reservation where she lived in northern Minnesota—or any reservation that she knew of, really. But she wanted her life to change—and this was the first step. It was her doctor who had suggested running. Howes’s daughter had died a year and a half before, and what followed was the deepest depression she had ever experienced. In the midst of her pain, she gained over a hundred pounds. Her doctor warned that if she didn’t change her sedentary lifestyle, she was at risk of becoming diabetic. “I had a new baby, and I didn’t want him to grow up watching me in the place where I was, both physically and mentally,” Howes says. So she decided to run. She didn’t get very far that first time, but Howes kept running and even signed up for a 5K. “I came in dead last,” Howes says. But it didn’t matter, especially when she saw her husband and son cheering her on at the finish line. “I felt victorious for the first time in a long time,” she says. The sight of an indigenous woman crossing a finish line is a powerful one. Headlines about Native Americans and mental health typically highlight the obstacles, not the victories—Native American populations have higher rates of domestic abuse and opioid use;

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October 23, 2019 at 12:00AM by CWC Squats are a sure-fire way to make your glutes burn. There’s no denying that. I mean, you can feel your muscles working every single time you lower down and raise back up. With that being said, dropping it low over and over again can get a little boring after a while, so it never hurts to switch things up. Some of the best exercises for glutes don’t include a single squat. If you’re dealing with a major case of squat fatigue (same!), there are plenty of other ways to give your booty just as great of a workout. Whether you’re into glute bridges or donkey kicks, these are some of the best exercises to do when you need a break from squats. The 8 best exercises for glutes that aren’t squats [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPM8icPu6H8] 1. GLUTE BRIDGE Lie on your back with your knees over your ankles and lower back firmly pressed into the mat. Lift your hips, keeping your core and glutes engaged, and pause at the top. Lower your hips down and kiss the ground before lifting back up again. Repeat. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtHxnWmMgzM] 2. Single-leg deadlift Standing on your right leg, slowly lift your left leg in the air behind you as you hinge forward. Keep a straight back and reach your hands toward the ground in front of you. Return to your starting position and repeat 10 to 12 times before switching to the opposite leg. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxP-j7nOlIY] 3. TABLE TOP WITH

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