RE: Do, or Not to Do

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aussieninja in Reflections • 13 days ago

The hour is not the same though. The hour in front of the TV is resting and recovering while the hour at the gym has a bunch of logistics, requires work to figure out an exercise plan, and then requires additional rest to recover from the extra effort.

Potentially your friend is happy with her choice to rest and recover from her day in front of the TV, but feels the need to feign gym-interest to you and society because of the peer pressure to accomplish everything, all the time, all at once. I'm sure she could actually make it to the gym if she actually chose to.

I'm all for championing rest and recovery in this truly overwhelming society we've created for ourselves.

13 days ago in Reflections by aussieninja

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tarazkp 13 days ago

The hour is not the same though.

The hour is identical. What is done and how we feel about that hour is different.

The hour in front of the TV is resting and recovering while the hour at the gym has a bunch of logistics, requires work to figure out an exercise plan, and then requires additional rest to recover from the extra effort.

Rest and recovery is largely an opinion too. For instance, smokers say smoking relaxes them - is it true? No. What it does is suppresses a craving for a little while. What we choose to do matters, and how we feel about it matters less in some cases, given what is being done.

I suspect that too much TV is like smoking. It doesn't actually relax us, but makes us crave more relaxation. So we keep feeding it, upping our daily intake. How much downtime do people need? 10% 50% ?

I also suspect that the recovery from watching TV too much is harder than going to the gym to maintain health. Like many excuses, the hidden cost of using them is higher than the cost of doing what we said we couldn't.

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aussieninja 13 days ago

Hmmm, I think you and I have very different viewpoints on rest and recovery.

I think it's likely that people aren't resting and recovering enough. I think it's quite possible that a lot of our physical and mental health issues stem from being stretched way too thin as the world around us constantly tries to convince us that we should be doing more, spending more, consuming more because it benefits so much from convincing us we aren't enough.

I legitimately don't know how much downtime people need, it might be down to the individual, I'm not even sure how to even go about working it out because there's no profit in anyone to research it and so much profit to try and sell us remedies when our physical and mental health start to break.

I don't personally think TV is like an addictive drug for the vast majority of the population. I'd say it's more likely that if someone is watching a dangerous amount of television there might be another issue like depression at play.

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tarazkp 12 days ago

I think it's likely that people aren't resting and recovering enough.

I think people are doing the wrong things for rest and recovery. I also think that people are far more sensitive to any fluctuations, which stress them and cause them anxiety in ways that didn't before. Everyone blames the changes in life, but I think it is more the changes in self. Lots of naval gazing, very little interaction with the real world.

I legitimately don't know how much downtime people need, it might be down to the individual,

It will be down to the individual, but that doesn't mean the individual is the best judge of how much they need. A depressed person can sleep 12 hours and still not want to get out of bed. Do they need more rest? Or is the way they are trying to recover not suitable for purpose?

I don't personally think TV is like an addictive drug for the vast majority of the population.

I say TV, but it is all screens. And all distractions. Some people consume hundreds of books a year, while their life and relationships falls apart.

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aussieninja 12 days ago

What would you say are better things to do for rest and recovery than screens? I totally agree that walking in nature really helps, but it's not always logistically easy.

Depression is a whole different situation, and I don't know enough to comment on it... but I imagine that a relatively healthy person is not getting nearly enough rest needed to cope with our overwhelming world. I think we all underestimate how important sleep is and how to get a really good night's sleep (something I'm totally struggling with).

Basically, I don't know your friend, I don't know anything about her, but I'm happy to give her the benefit of the doubt that her not getting to the gym is more likely for reasons of exhaustion than laziness.

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