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Posts Tagged ‘Health’

Do I Look Good …?

May 31st, 2010
by ianpeatey.
4 comments

Running is a great time for slowing down. I’ve started jogging daily first thing in the morning and I can’t imagine a better start to the day. I have a park right next to where I live populated at that time by fellow joggers and dog-walkers. There’s nothing quite like watching the sun rise and catch the water on the lake and the fresh smell of the dawn.

I’m often overcome with moments of sheer joy and love for the world – mixed in with the not so subtle reminders from my body that I’m not as young as I used to be!

Out Of My Head

Apart from the hoped for health benefits it’s a great time to be in my skin and not my head.

I’m not what you might call an ‘athletic type’ (no, please don’t write in to tell me I’m wrong .. I am NOT an athletic type!) so any form of exercise doesn’t come so easily for me. Which means a lot of my energy and attention is taken up with the physical exertion of running. In turn that means my thinking has far less power over me and is much slowed down.

Running has become my meditation practice.

To some extent I can focus my thinking towards getting something done .. but that takes some control. Usually my head is full of a jumble of different ideas, thoughts, fleeting glimpses of a memory, visions of the future, advice to myself, reminders of things to do – all mixed up with the background noise of thoughts that are impossible to catch. Running quietens my thoughts rather than making them disappear completely, so those I do have are much easier to catch.

Running, or anything that gives me something physical to focus on, allows all that background crap to take a break.

What’s left is much clearer. Much easier to distinguish.

So …. Do I Look Good?

This morning I caught this particular thought as I passed some other runners going in the opposite direction.

“I hope I look good!”

Objectively speaking I’m a slightly overweight 46 year old in running gear that was thrown together from whatever was to hand this morning. My legs are long and my running ’style’ could never be described as elegant. When I had this thought I’d been running for about 15 minutes, so my face was red, sweaty and wore an expression that says something like ‘I’m sure this park was smaller yesterday’.

Objectively speaking there is no way I ‘look good‘ while running.

More than that, one of my beliefs about myself is that what I look like doesn’t matter to me, so it was a shock to catch this thought popping up.

Thoughts Come From Somewhere

Usually what I do with a thought that I don’t like or doesn’t fit with my world view is simply to discount it as a random aberration. On reflection that’s not necessarily the most sensible thing to do as my thoughts, even the crazy ones, could just be telling me something.

The trick, I believe, is to:

  • notice them
  • listen to them
  • step back from them a little
  • see if there’s a message

And always be very wary of believing them to be ‘true’.

The Message

I noticed the thought, listened to it and stepped back from it a little.

Do I care more about my physical appearance than I care to admit to myself?

I arrogantly like to think of myself as ‘different’ and ‘Bohemian’ and that I’d like to be seen for the human being I am and not judged for what I look like.

In truth I keep my head shaved and often look a little scruffy, preferring casual to smart and old to new. If I’m honest with myself I tend to dress down as a way of getting noticed and demonstrating my individuality and rebellion against other people’s standards. I often deliberately choose ‘a look’ that’s designed to attract attention but in doing so I’m just playing the same game.

For example this morning I chose a running vest and told myself it was to keep cooler. I think I was lying to myself .. it was to show off the small tattoo of a scorpion on my left shoulder.

In our world, rightly or wrongly, looks count for a lot. I don’t like the extent to which this is the case but I do understand it. After all, what I look like is the first thing that anyone meeting me will notice. They have little else to go on other than my appearance and I’m perhaps more influenced by this than I care to admit.

Anyway, it got me thinking about what other messages there might be in those aberrant thoughts I only catch while running.

I’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to pick them up!

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Mar 10th, 2010
by ianpeatey.
10 comments

On 17th February, at 00.27 am, Sara Emma Peatey arrived into the world.

This is the last of a trilogy of articles related to this life changing event to bring closure to this chapter of my life and, of course, start a new one! (read The Miracle of Birth and 5 Questions While Waiting For A Baby).

I’m not one for sentimentality and I certainly do not enjoy hearing baby stuff from others. I love my three kids more than anything, but I draw the line at extending that beyond my blood family.

I’ve heard plenty of men say ‘what an amazing experience’ it is to be present at birth. I was present at Sara’s birth, and throughout labour, as I was with my first two daughters. It’s definitely an honour to be there when new life enters the world, but I can’t say I understand the ‘amazing experience’ when applied to the rest of it.

Am I a freak to be glad I don’t have to experience it myself and to say the whole thing is actually quite unpleasant?

A quick recap

Mona decided she wanted as natural a birth as possible which in many cultures is perfectly well supported and even expected. Natural, for us, meant no intervention – unless absolutely necessary for the safety of mother or child. No chemicals, hospitals, cutting or any other ‘improvements’ on the well-designed-by-nature system for delivering new life into the world.

This was always going to be challenging in a country where 90% of birth is by planned Caesarian, it’s generally assumed you must be a masochist if you choose natural birth and where breastfeeding is considered to be for those who can’t afford formula!

Right time

Everything happens at the right time

Sara was due on 9th February by the doctors’ calculations but Mona’s innner guide told her it was going to be 31st January.

Both days came and went, which just proves that neither doctors nor inner guides know everything and babies do exactly what they want, when they want!

Now I’ve never been pregnant so I don’t know first hand what it feels like. From my observations of mothers, the physical side gets more and more uncomfortable as the last month passes. Everything takes longer with the extra bulk. Sleeping is difficult. You start to forget what it felt like to be not-pregnant. Water starts to get retained in places it’s never been retained before. The growing baby makes its presence felt with greater vigour.

No matter how much you want to just get on with life as normal, it becomes less and less possible and more and more frustrating. I’m just waiting on the sidelines. Unable to do anything other than take care of the apartment and reluctant to start anything of significance, not knowing when the big event will happen.

What I do know is that giving birth itself is very painful and no amount of Hollywood ‘30 seconds of pushing and they’re out’ can change the reality of it. You have to be very frustrated to want that! Indeed by the time the day came Mona was so frustrated she was desperate to give birth – pain and everything.

The right time was 00.27 on 17th February 2010.

How do I know?

Because that’s when she was born!

Right way

The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray

Our beautiful vision of natural, home birth and providing a warm, cozy welcome for the little one lay in tatters. It was very hard to let go of this vision but when faced with potentially life or death situations, stubbornness is not always a very helpful trait.

The first part of labour was manageable. I kept out of the way, bobbing in and out when I felt I could be helpful and, according to our midwife, it was a text-book labour.

Until it stopped being so. The story moved to those dreaded final chapters of the text book and the pages about the things that can go wrong.

Basically the labour froze.

For 6 hours the contractions had no effect at all – unless you count the excrutiating agony. They should have been pushing the baby, opening the way and moving to that final stage of ‘Push …. Push … PUUUUUSHHHHH!’

If you’ve been there yourself you’ll remember counting the centimetres (or inches). We got stuck at 5cm and even I can work out that 5cm is not enough. Babies are small – but not that small!

So off we went to hospital.

For Mona it was a desire to get some relief from the pain.

For the midwife it was a desire to be closer to the technology available to help in these rarer situations.

And for me? I hate hospitals – but I’m not the one with a baby inside my body trying to get out.

After a little more waiting and hoping that things will start to move along naturally it becomes clear there will to be no easy way out. No-one seems to know why things are stuck – but stuck they are.

It’s close to midnight and we’re presented with a choice. Continue with a long, painful labour that’s likely to end in an emergency C-section or …. skip the painful part and go straight for the C-section. The staff leave to allow us to have a moment to discuss what we want to do.

I’m starting to appreciate how the baby feels right now – stuck and very small. Mona even more so.

30 minutes later we’re in the middle of the scenario we most wanted to avoid.

Mona is strapped to the table, surrounded by machines and what could be an entire soccer team all wearing masks. There are tubes, needles, scalpels and suddenly the baby is pulled out and whisked away by strangers.

Every cell in my body is screaming this is WRONG! I forget to breathe as I’m trying to comfort Mona who is shaking and crying. This is as invasive and impersonal as you can get.

I have to leave, I’m almost fainting. I feel so utterly helpless.

But.

This is the right way.

How do I know?

Because the cord was wrapped several times around the baby, making it impossible for her to be born the way nature intended. If it was not for the invention of the C-section, probably neither mother nor child would have lived to see the dawn.

All Right Now

All’s well that ends well

This whole experience taught me several very important things I was maybe missing before:

1    I have very little control

I knew this already and it’s been proved to me over and over again but I’d pushed it to one side for the last months and thought I could decide how things would be when it came to the birth. In reality I control nothing. I can help things along, ease the path and gently steer direction. Any illusion that I am in control, though, is just that – an illusion.

2   Humility

Honestly speaking I had very little respect for doctors or the whole medical profession. I believed I knew more than they. This experience proved I’m wrong and I have no shame in admitting it. There are times when they are absolutely wonderful and what they do saves lives. Everyone we met (except one sour faced nurse) was great. I’ve found new respect for the medical world and less certainty that I know better.

3   The Journey

Over the years I’ve been developing a much greater appreciation of the importance of the journey over the destination. This was a reminder that there may well be times when the result is more important than how one gets there. We now have a healthy, beautiful daughter and a fast recovering mother. The path was not the path we wanted .. but it did get us here safely. The other paths might have ended in disaster.

Impossible Not To Love

You can’t always get what you want

… or the way you want it or when you want it.

At the time it was hard to accept this.

We wanted a natural birth, soft lights, gentle music and a lot of warmth and gentleness. As I was sitting by Mona’s side as she lay on the operating table I had this thought,

‘Am I ever going to be able to love the baby?’

We wanted Sara’s first hours to be laying on the safety of her mothers chest. We wanted the cord to be left and not cut straight away. As they opened Mona under the bright lights, as they pulled Sara out, cut the cord and took her away to clean and check, I wondered,

‘Will this damage her in some way? Will I be able to look her in the eye, knowing that I wasn’t able to protect her at this most vulnerable point of her new life?‘

Three weeks after the birth, as I hold her in my arms or watch her face as she’s sleeping peacefully those thoughts are long dead. She’s safe, warm, happy and cared for.

It is impossible for me not to love her.

Vegetarian Living – One Year On

Jan 26th, 2010
by ianpeatey.
38 comments

One year ago I stopped eating meat of any kind which was a pretty big step for me. Even bigger is that I’ve kept it up and now the idea of eating meat is just repugnant to me.

That’s quite something coming from a person who has a very limited track record of sticking to anything for long. It’s also from someone who was an avid and enthusiastic carnivore until this time last year.

I wrote an article last year about some of the benefits I’d noticed (‘6 Reasons Eating Vegetarian Food Is Best‘) and I thought it about time to update that and add in some new insights now the novelty has worn off.

1. Less Sleep

This was something I noticed almost immediately and it surprised me – cutting out meat seems to have reduced the amount of sleep I need. Initially this was 90 minutes a night but it seems to have stabilised to around an hour. Even so, this is a huge benefit for me and means I can either enjoy a slow winding up for the day or simply get more done.

When I wrote about this before some people reacted that it was probably something else I did that caused it. Obviously I can’t scientifically prove that cutting meat means less sleep and I know we all work differently on a physical level. Intuitively, I’m sure it was the cause and that’s good enough for me.

2.  Feeling Healthier

Gone are the days of an unpleasant heavy sensation in my stomach after a big meat meal. I remember it felt as though I’d swallowed a big ball of flesh that my stomach was having a hard time to digest. I find it hard to over-eat on a staple of veggies, rice, dairy and pulses. I guess it’s that they’re bulkier and fill the stomach faster.

I just feel better in my body most of the time.

I’ve stopped during the winter months, but over the summer I felt like exercising daily – something I’ve not done for many years. I’m pretty sure my running shoes will see the daylight again once the temperature rises and I can safely jog without risking a heart attack from the biting cold.

Actually I don’t think this is anything to do with a vegetarian diet being physically any healthier. It’s more that my mental health is improved – as if the act of stopping meat was cleansing in itself.

3.  Saving Money

Meat is definitely more expensive – both at home and eating out – and I’ve saved some money on grocery bills. I’ve also substituted some of those savings to buy organic and ecological where possible. I find it sad and frustrating that non-mass-produced food is so much more expensive than factory-made but that’s one of the wonderful results of capitalism and the market economy!

Ideally, I’d love to grow and eat some of my own food but that will have to wait until I move out of the city and into the countryside and have some land to use. For now, all food is bought and with another mouth to feed any day now, the small savings of a vegetarian diet are very welcome.

4.  Speed versus Choice

Cutting out a whole food group clearly has consequences on the amount of choice when deciding what to eat. I eat out less than I used to and the smaller number of options on most menus is one of the reasons. I’m not complaining but just noticing it. On one hand it’s a logical consequence of not eating meat and, by definition, there’s always going to be less choice for me in any non-vegetarian restaurant.

Eastern Europe (and not only) does not cater well to those who don’t eat flesh. Restaurants catering for vegetarians are extremely rare and on a typical restaurant menu I estimate around 95% of non-sweet dishes contain meat. That saves me a lot of time when choosing from a menu but makes it far less enjoyable to eat out.

5.  More Highly Evolved

This one is hard for me and a constant struggle.

I noticed it right away, I fight it, I’m not proud of it … but I have caught myself looking down on meat eaters as less evolved human beings. It comes out as smugness, snide and unpleasant comments to family and friends as well as holding my head a little higher as I come out of the organic shop with my latest healthy purchase.

That sounds absolutely terrible, doesn’t it?

And it is.

I hope this is a passing ‘obnoxious’ phase as I fully develop into, and own, being a non-meat eater. Most of my family and friends eat meat. In fact, the majority of the human race eats meat and I really do respect whatever dietary choices people choose. At the same time I can’t shake this idea that myself I’m now more developed than I was as a meat eater.

I just wish I didn’t take it further and make the leap that I’m superior to others. That’s just arrogant and wrong!

6.  I am NOT ‘A Vegetarian’

When people notice that I don’t have any meat on my plate I’m quite often asked, ‘Are you a vegetarian?’ as though it’s some strange and mysterious breed of creature.

Often I just answer ‘yes’ because I’m too lazy to explain but I really don’t like being labelled for anything – relating to what I eat is no exception. There’s no label for ‘meat eater’ (well, except for ‘meat eater’) so why have one for people who don’t eat meat? Lumping large numbers of people together in a single unified category is dangerous and doesn’t get us anywhere.

I once worked in a very posh training centre close to Brussels. They had a professional chef who was very good and took great pride in his cooking. He also had a belief that ‘vegetarians’ are crazy, stupid and a sure sign of the decay of the modern world. He reluctantly catered for them, but I was always a little nervous that he might poison them. I’ve no doubt that some ‘vegetarians’ are crazy and stupid, but then some meat eaters are not well balanced either.

7.  Separate Meals

While I may hold this belief that giving up meat was a positive step in my personal development, I’m not so arrogant to impose that on anyone else. I regard it as a personal choice and I continue to serve meat for other people (mainly my kids and Mona).

I also don’t expect anyone to prepare something special for me when we socialise. I’m quite ok to eat what everyone else is eating – just skipping the meat dishes. I’m fortunate that all my family are very supportive and go out of their way to prepare special veggie meals when I visit, and I’m really grateful for and touched by that.

Mona gave up meat at the same time I did, but her pregnancy kind of sabotaged that. I’m not saying that vegetarianism and pregnancy don’t go together – but she did succumb to a craving for fish and a little meat. We both believe that our bodies give us clear signs about what we’re missing, and she took the cravings as just that. I also spend a lot of time as single father to my 6 year old and I prepare meat for her.

I guess if my vegetarianism was morally driven then I’d not do that, but it’s not, so I do.

The downside, of course, is extra complexity, waste and more energy consumption in preparing meals. I sometimes wonder if it’s just pure self indulgence on my side but then I look at the bigger picture of my life and I stay with it.

8.  Do I Miss Anything?

I’ve not had any desire to eat meat from mammals.

I did pass a grill in the summer and enjoyed the smell of cooking meat – but not enough to actually eat it. I feel very comfortable with the thought that I’ll never eat cow, pig, sheep or chicken again before I die.

I do miss fish and seafood, though, and in particular sushi.

Not sure how that will play out this year and I’m just going to see where that takes me. I know from past experience that the more I fight something, the greater power I give it. Fortunately Mona doesn’t like seafood at all, so we never buy it.

It could just be a passing phase – or I may start eating a little fish now and then.

Overall this year has been a very positive experience and if anyone is thinking about stopping meat I highly recommend you give it a try.

Surviving Christmas

Dec 21st, 2009
by ianpeatey.
10 comments

It’s Monday 21st December and  I’m looking out of the window at the snow on the ground wondering if we’re going to have a white, Romanian Christmas. The sun has nearly set so the coloured lights of the Christmas trees are starting to appear.

Christmas is everywhere – even the desktop icon on my favourite media player has mysteriously grown a Santa hat (I kid you not! It is cute but truly bizarre! Go to the end of the post to see what I mean).

For the last few years I’ve become increasingly ‘anti-Christmas’.

To be more precise, I’ve become increasingly ‘anti-Christmas-commercialisation.’ I wrote last year about the Corporate Take-Over of Christmas so this year my scrooge-like attention is drawn to the personal domain.

15 Carol Singers

The weekend heralded the arrival, en masse, of carol singers, ranging from well trained young theology students with angel voices through to ragged groups of gypsies who seemed to think that blowing random notes on a trumpet was a good way to herald the holiday season.

I didn’t get the impression that any of the approximately 15 visiting groups were interested in anything other than receiving money. I have a very non-peaceful desire to get all zealous and throw cold water over them – but then I know that would ruin it for everyone.

1 Supermarket Trip

Mona and I went to the supermarket early on Saturday morning, just after it opened at 8.00 am, to buy a few supplies. We assumed that at that time of day everyone would still be asleep or digging their cars out the snow and we’d be able to shop in peace.

I really should learn not to make assumptions.

It was packed with people frantically stocking up and you would have got the impression that the end of the world was about to arrive. We were doing the same, so it would be highly hypocritical of me to complain and we spent at least twice as much money as we normally would on a regular excursion for provisions. There’s really no reason for it other than some vague fear that we might starve over the holiday season and not be able to buy anything if we run out.

I don’t normally notice myself respond to a ’scarcity’ view of life – but this was definitely one of those times.

Starvation, thank God, is not part of my reality and I count myself fortunate when I think of all the millions of people who do not have enough to eat.

559 tree decorations

We just decorated our tree and I have to say it’s looking very pretty. I’ve even taken the liberty of putting a photo of it here!

One thing you will notice is that when it comes to decorating the tree, the concept of scarcity is far from our thinking. There are 559 individual decorations collected over many years. It reminds me of my childhood when the tree was a highlight of the year and a focal point for family life and revellry.

I didn’t actually count them – the number 559 is random and simply implies ‘a lot’. It’s a reasonably harmless demonstration of the excess I usually subject myself to at this time of year.

Excess baubles, excess food, excess drink, excess lazy days in front of the TV.

I doubt I can be 100% frugal but would like to curb some of the usual excess.

How to survive Christmas?

‘Survival’ and ‘Christmas’ may seem like strange sentence bedfellows. Either that or it’s a clear sign of my scrooginess coming out again. At this time – a few days before Christmas – I start to get edgy and I do usually worry about how to get through the festivities without exploding.

This year I decided to stop fighting and go with the flow.

I might not actually enjoy the hordes of money-grabbing carolers, supermarket freaks and glittery plastic things hanging from the tree. But that doesn’t mean I should get irate about the secular perversion of this time of year and shut myself away for a week until it blows over.

It is how it how it is and I can choose to enjoy it or fight it. I’m free to enjoy my way, everyone else is free to enjoy it their way.

To those who celebrate Christmas – enjoy your Christmas. To those who celebrate something else – enjoy your something else. To those who don’t celebrate at all – enjoy your non-celebration.

Life’s too short not to enjoy as much of it as possible – even desktop icons that strangely grow Santa hats!

How we die

Sep 2nd, 2009
by ianpeatey.
6 comments

It’s very much a cliché, but … we all die.

What we can be sure of is that our physical bodies age and die. Beyond that, no matter how certain I might think I am, nobody truly knows what happens. Many people have very full lives and die at ripe old ages, and, while it can be painful to say ‘goodbye’, we know it’s the right time for them to leave.

There is a line of thought that says whenever we die is the right time because of fate, karma, the will of God, or whatever. But many of us have known people we consider have died ‘before their time’ – from preventable diseases, accidents or intentionally.

For most of us these are premature deaths and hard to accept or understand.

Though death itself is inevitable, many of the causes of death are not.

The death test

Perhaps it’s not in the best possible taste, but I offer you a short test to start with.

Below is a list of 6 possible causes of premature death:

  • Falling
  • War
  • Suicide
  • Road Traffic Accidents
  • Drowning
  • Non war acts of violence

Your task (should you accept it) is to rank them in order from most fatalities to least.

For example, if you think ‘Drowning‘ kills more people than any of the other items, that goes at the top of your list. The answers are revealed a little further down, so you might want to stop reading until you’ve done the test.

And for those who really enjoy a challenge – guess how many people die annually worldwide from each cause.

The World Health Report – some figures

Before I reveal the answers I should just say a few words about where my figures come from as you may have access to more recent statistics.

I took the figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO) ‘World Health Report – 2004.’ The figures are the combined worldwide figures from 2002 and are from Annex 2 of the report.

Apparently a total of just over 57 million people died in 2002 and the huge majority of those died from an illness or some kind of health failure. You could argue that all death is a health failure, but I hope you know what I mean! The research is a wonderland for any hypochondriac – so if you fall into that category, I invite you to study the tables in detail ;-)

The study shows number of deaths from pretty much any disease or health failure you can imagine. Looking at those figures it’s clear (to me at any rate) that many millions of people die of health related reasons because of poverty and lack of access to decent health care.

These are preventable and, while I in no way want to imply they are unimportant, they are not what I want to look at here.

I’m focusing on deaths as a result of direct violence of some kind – either intentional or unintentional. So as you read on, please bear in mind that I’m talking about a relatively small proportion of fatalities – around 9% of the total.

So … how do we die?

1.   Road Traffic Accidents

1,192,000
2.   Suicide

873,000
3.   Non war acts of violence

559,000
4.   Falling

392,000
5.   Drowning

382,000
6.   War

172,000

How did you do on the test?

There are other causes listed in the report, with a total of 3,551,000 unintentionally and 1,618,000 intentionally violent deaths – around 9% of the total.

Some reactions

Rather than an in-depth analysis, I offer a few personal reactions – and I’d love to hear your own in the comments section.

1   Cars are deadly

For all the talk about gun control, the motor vehicle is the most lethal weapon we possess (though if you shoot a gun at someone you are clearly more likely to cause death or injury than if you get in a car!).

  • How many more millions are injured?
  • How come we got so careless with our driving?
  • When did we start to build and buy such dangerous cars (I guess speed is the big factor here)?

2  Life is lonely and painful for many

I wasn’t surprised that traffic accidents were at the top of the list. I was horrified that suicide is number two. And given that suicide is something of a taboo subject, I’m wondering if the true figures might be even higher. The report doesn’t actually mention ’suicide’ but describes it as ‘Self inflicted’ in the category of ‘Intentional deaths’. Is this a symptom of the taboo nature of suicide?

  • How did we allow life to become so painful and meaningless to so many hundreds of thousands of people?
  • Have our communities broken down so far that so many people feel isolated and alone?
  • Why is this not talked about more in the mainstream?

3   War is not only about death

Clearly the number of deaths in war can change dramatically depending on the conflicts in any given year. 2002 was not, as I recall an especially war-rich year, but I’m still surprised by the small number. My impression (from the media space it receives) was that war is a much greater cause of death – clearly this impression is wrong.

Also just looking at the figures is misleading as the consequences of war are far wider and deeper than the direct casualties.

  • How many die because of illness, poverty, relocation as a result of war?
  • How do you measure the long term consequences – emotional, physical, economic?

4    Careless in the extreme

We are pretty careless, judging by the number of accidents we have. We die from falling, drowning, getting poisoned (350,000) and in fires (312,000).

  • How do we balance being careful with living life to the full?
  • Are we really aware of basic safety precautions around the home and on the street?

What do you think of these numbers? Have you been affected by any of these among your family, friends or colleagues?

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