When to Check If You Are Having Fun
The most crucial moment of my day is the first three minutes after I return home. I am at the lowest point. If I am asked to make a decision or tackle a problem, I will answer uselessly or annoyed. I cannot get rid of this silly little period. But I figured out how to get around this by paying attention to my body.
These first few minutes at home are often the most physically uncomfortable moment of the day. I made my way home through subway stations and narrow sidewalks, collected groceries, then ran up the stairs, and I was still overheated from the summer heat or my winter coat. So I’ve learned to put off any real discussion – even dinner plans – until I put my things aside, cool down, and maybe eat satsuma. In those three minutes, I get back ten IQ points.
Sometimes this physical check is called HALT: checking if you are hungry / angry / lonely / tired. Anger and loneliness is not an easy task (I am always angry, Captain), so I prefer to check the physical factors first. Am I experiencing strong emotions due to an immediate physical problem? Do I need water? I need to go to the toilet? Do I need someone to squeeze my shoulders? Do I need to put something ? In Scientific American, David Planov calls this body awareness “interoception,” a word that has been around for over 100 years but has been underestimated in favor of “mindfulness.” You can develop your perception through traditional mindfulness activities such as meditation and simple HALT-style checks.
When I raised this issue with my colleagues at Lifehacker, everyone immediately had an example. At some point in the evening, Senior Video Producer Joel Kahn realizes he needs to pull out his pins in order to think right. Staff writer Josh Ocampo is out of work when he returns from the gym, “I’m too relaxed to do anything.”
Interim parenting editor Megan Walbert can get some fun in the evening if she doesn’t have a snack break. Health Editor Beth Skareki knows what she needs to eat when she opens new tabs in her browser for no reason.
On her morning commute to work, finance writer Alicia Adamchik “sweats and gets annoyed with everyone on the subway,” unless she gives herself enough coffee time, “and the right time for my moisturizer to soak in so I don’t sweat. a mess when I’m crushed between people. “
“In the morning, I need to remind myself NOT to check my body,” says Beth. “The first 15 minutes of being awake, any tiny mild fatigue, muscle soreness or runny nose, and I am convinced that I am dying and it would be useless to get out of bed.”
Writer Brendan Hesse deals with ADHD with “an almost constant hyperfocused self-reflective thought loop that double-checks why and how I feel, and the resulting connectedness between that state and my thoughts.” Medication for ADHD can ease this cycle, but also make him less aware of things like hunger and fever.
Writer Amy Lutkin makes the opposite check: if she’s had a crappy or weird evening, she’s more likely to have a snack. And, she says, “I get more emotional at night, so I never send important emails after dark.”
“Our current culture is terrible to intercept,” writes The Plans in Scientific American. Personally, I have always been annoyed by the idea that bodily needs can control my mood. But so many of my bad moods are resolved or mitigated by physical correction: I strain less if I set up my table correctly; I stop panicking in a crowd if I just look further than my body.
In Cutaway, Edith Zimmerman ironically emphasizes the use of the word “simple” to describe these feelings : “It’s just” our sore muscles, we are “just” hungry, we are “just” tired, as if we eat, sleep and have bodies – this is secondary activity. We like to think of ourselves as a brain trapped in a container, or as superheroes who can run from the smoke. But we are not superheroes. And if we want someone to think about us, it is better to have a snack and put on a sweater.