This made me laugh... had to copy and re-post it!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
How to cope with Restless Legs Syndrome
This is a post I have put on the rls.org forum. Restless Legs Syndrome is where your whole body, and mind are tired and want to rest, but your legs alone are virtually shaking with adrenaline from wanting to be used. It is a widespread condition which affects hundreds of thousands of people, for which there is not a medical cure. It keeps people awake half the night when they are utterly exhausted, and so I thought I would post on their forum how I cope with it.
Hello all,
I recently joined this forum, because I have struggled with RLS for around 10 years now, and in this time have learned some coping mechanisms which actually work!
I am now 27, when i was 17 I first began getting restless legs at night occasionally. At age 22 I began putting on a little weight, and so at 23 I took up running to take control of my weight gain. Over several months I got to the stage where I was running 5 miles daily, which made me feel great and helped me lose weight, but also for the first time made my RLS into a daily ordeal.
Previously the issue only flared up now and again, but following taking up running, the issue became a nightly (and sometimes daily) problem. When I was 17-19 I would sometimes do a sprint to alleviate the irritation in my legs, or get on my family's exercise bike, put it on a very resistant setting and pedal as hard as I could until I could go no more, which would work sometimes too, but not every time.
When at 23 things became unbearable, and I was finding myself exhausted yet unable to sleep because of the problem, I decided to break down the issue into its component parts. I was tired physically and mentally, and ready to relax and sleep, but the muscles in my legs were not letting me. So what was the answer? I found that anti-histamines did not help, they made me even more groggy, but did not stop the muscles in my legs from wanting to be used constantly. Muscle relaxers just knocked me out, and that was just overwhelming drugged up sleep, not the natural rhythm of life which I want. My leg muscles were saying 'USE ME USE ME USE ME!' while nothing else in my body was. So I decided to try a few exercises which would use just those muscles so I could relax.
The most effective thing I have found for dealing with RLS is just completely burning out the muscles in my legs with very simple (and totally free!) exercises. The one I started with was as follows:-
Lock yourself in the bathroom, or somewhere you wont be looked at like a nutcase. Then, get on tiptoes, and keeping your back completely straight and upright, bend your knees a little, until you lower yourself to the point where you can feel the irritated muscles starting to burn a little. This can just be a small bend of the knees, or right down to a 90 degree angle knee-bend. Then just hold that position until your legs are totally burned out! It takes a little self-discipline, but if you do this exercise WHILE the RLS is irritating your legs, it is just so satisfying to obliterate that agitated feeling - its like scratching a really bad itch, and making it go away. I find that counting while I do it helps alot, initially I went to 30, and then after a while was up to 100. After so many years unable to defeat the irritation, this little squat exercise (if I held it for long enough) felt so satisfying. It felt like I was obliterating, annihilating the irritating monster in my legs. Often after this exercise my legs felt wobbly and light after releasing it, but it was SO SO SO worth it to have the RLS symptoms gone, and to be able to lie down with all of my body relaxed and ready to sleep, and my legs so burned out that they couldn't do anything to stop it.
This first exercise worked great for a while for me, but as it is an exercise which burns out leg muscles, it is therefore also an exercise which builds them too. So after a while you have to go lower and hold the squat for longer to get the same burn-out effect. I got to the stage with the first leg exercise where I was holding the squat very low and counting to 300, and still not being properly burned out, so I needed a new one. Also, I simply didnt have the patience to wait that long for relief.
The second exercise (which I now use exclusively) is the wall-sit. It involves holding my back against a study wall, with my upper legs horizontal infront of me, and my lower legs vertical to the floor, as if I am a human chair set against the wall. In this exercise my upper legs take the full strain of my body weight, and although it is much harder to do than the first squat exercise, it is infinitely more satisfying and destroys the RLS symptoms more effectively than anything else I have tried. To see a diagram of this exercise do a google image search for 'wall sit'. I now count to over 100 seconds while doing this exercise, but it works, and I am very grateful.
I have also made adjustments to my lifestyle to cope with RLS. I dont run at all anymore, instead I walk 2 miles a day, and am much more focussed on diet to lose weight. I have to still take anti-histamine medication for my allergies, but have found that the wall-sit is enough to cope with any medication-provoked flare-ups. I keep a normal routine - bed at 11 and up at 8 every day, and I find that if I have excessive stress or constantly broken routines, that tends to make RLS flare up worse than usual, so taking life a bit easier than normal is also a massive help.
I would be glad to hear any thoughts or input :)
Jimmi
Hello all,
I recently joined this forum, because I have struggled with RLS for around 10 years now, and in this time have learned some coping mechanisms which actually work!
I am now 27, when i was 17 I first began getting restless legs at night occasionally. At age 22 I began putting on a little weight, and so at 23 I took up running to take control of my weight gain. Over several months I got to the stage where I was running 5 miles daily, which made me feel great and helped me lose weight, but also for the first time made my RLS into a daily ordeal.
Previously the issue only flared up now and again, but following taking up running, the issue became a nightly (and sometimes daily) problem. When I was 17-19 I would sometimes do a sprint to alleviate the irritation in my legs, or get on my family's exercise bike, put it on a very resistant setting and pedal as hard as I could until I could go no more, which would work sometimes too, but not every time.
When at 23 things became unbearable, and I was finding myself exhausted yet unable to sleep because of the problem, I decided to break down the issue into its component parts. I was tired physically and mentally, and ready to relax and sleep, but the muscles in my legs were not letting me. So what was the answer? I found that anti-histamines did not help, they made me even more groggy, but did not stop the muscles in my legs from wanting to be used constantly. Muscle relaxers just knocked me out, and that was just overwhelming drugged up sleep, not the natural rhythm of life which I want. My leg muscles were saying 'USE ME USE ME USE ME!' while nothing else in my body was. So I decided to try a few exercises which would use just those muscles so I could relax.
The most effective thing I have found for dealing with RLS is just completely burning out the muscles in my legs with very simple (and totally free!) exercises. The one I started with was as follows:-
Lock yourself in the bathroom, or somewhere you wont be looked at like a nutcase. Then, get on tiptoes, and keeping your back completely straight and upright, bend your knees a little, until you lower yourself to the point where you can feel the irritated muscles starting to burn a little. This can just be a small bend of the knees, or right down to a 90 degree angle knee-bend. Then just hold that position until your legs are totally burned out! It takes a little self-discipline, but if you do this exercise WHILE the RLS is irritating your legs, it is just so satisfying to obliterate that agitated feeling - its like scratching a really bad itch, and making it go away. I find that counting while I do it helps alot, initially I went to 30, and then after a while was up to 100. After so many years unable to defeat the irritation, this little squat exercise (if I held it for long enough) felt so satisfying. It felt like I was obliterating, annihilating the irritating monster in my legs. Often after this exercise my legs felt wobbly and light after releasing it, but it was SO SO SO worth it to have the RLS symptoms gone, and to be able to lie down with all of my body relaxed and ready to sleep, and my legs so burned out that they couldn't do anything to stop it.
This first exercise worked great for a while for me, but as it is an exercise which burns out leg muscles, it is therefore also an exercise which builds them too. So after a while you have to go lower and hold the squat for longer to get the same burn-out effect. I got to the stage with the first leg exercise where I was holding the squat very low and counting to 300, and still not being properly burned out, so I needed a new one. Also, I simply didnt have the patience to wait that long for relief.
The second exercise (which I now use exclusively) is the wall-sit. It involves holding my back against a study wall, with my upper legs horizontal infront of me, and my lower legs vertical to the floor, as if I am a human chair set against the wall. In this exercise my upper legs take the full strain of my body weight, and although it is much harder to do than the first squat exercise, it is infinitely more satisfying and destroys the RLS symptoms more effectively than anything else I have tried. To see a diagram of this exercise do a google image search for 'wall sit'. I now count to over 100 seconds while doing this exercise, but it works, and I am very grateful.
I have also made adjustments to my lifestyle to cope with RLS. I dont run at all anymore, instead I walk 2 miles a day, and am much more focussed on diet to lose weight. I have to still take anti-histamine medication for my allergies, but have found that the wall-sit is enough to cope with any medication-provoked flare-ups. I keep a normal routine - bed at 11 and up at 8 every day, and I find that if I have excessive stress or constantly broken routines, that tends to make RLS flare up worse than usual, so taking life a bit easier than normal is also a massive help.
I would be glad to hear any thoughts or input :)
Jimmi
Monday, May 16, 2011
Is Jenna Maroney ( 30 Rock) based on Amy Poehler and Tammy Swanson (Parks and Recreation) based on Tina Fey Bossypants?
I just finished reading 'Bossypants' by Tina Fey, her 'autobiography/not really an autobiography/blandly humourous commentary on disconnected parts of her life/excessively political and feminist agenda'. It was actually quite a good, easy read, and at no point was I bored. I did also laugh out loud 2 or 3 times. She does (accidentally maybe) paint a sort-of mean spirited cut-throat picture of herself as someone who sold her soul to be a success, and also interestingly the book leaves out any detail of how she met, dated and married her husband, and almost any detail about how she transitioned from working at a reception desk at a YMCA in Chicago to being head writer at Saturday Night Live, which leaves the reader feeling slightly suspcious about these events which are so conspicuously absent from the book. The picture which the mind forms of Tina Fey from her writing is one of a very clever and funny, but ruthless and ambitous-to-a-fault lady, who you would not put it past to have committed shenanigans in attaining both hubby and job...
This highly judgemental theory I have come to, also helps with my theory that somewhere along the line, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler fell out, and that they are now maliciously parodying one another on their respective hit shows. In 30 Rock, Jenna Maroney is a blonde co-star/co-worker with Liz Lemon (Fey). In the fictional world of 30 Rock, Lemon and Maroney came up through a Chicago Improv Group (as did Fey and Poehler), before both joining the team of TGS (SNL in real life), one as a blonde star (Maroney/Poehler), and one as the writer (Lemon/Fey). At first I thought maybe this was just a coincidence, until I got caught up on Poehler's 'Parks and Recreation', which (is great and) is written and produced by the same guys who made the US version of The Office. I noticed that the demented psiren Tammy Swanson (ex-wife of the almighty moustachioed Ron) looks very like (uncannily like) Tina Fey, and is a cut-throat manipulator who will literally use anyone or anything and do anything to anyone or anything to get her way.
So are Tammi Swanson and Jenna Maroney actually malicious mockeries of one another being batted back and forth like a tennis ball by Fey and Poehler?
Are they actually a bit of best-friends-banter between two enlightened feminists who are having a laugh with one another?
Or am I just reading a whole load of nonsense into something which isnt actually there?
Probably.
This highly judgemental theory I have come to, also helps with my theory that somewhere along the line, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler fell out, and that they are now maliciously parodying one another on their respective hit shows. In 30 Rock, Jenna Maroney is a blonde co-star/co-worker with Liz Lemon (Fey). In the fictional world of 30 Rock, Lemon and Maroney came up through a Chicago Improv Group (as did Fey and Poehler), before both joining the team of TGS (SNL in real life), one as a blonde star (Maroney/Poehler), and one as the writer (Lemon/Fey). At first I thought maybe this was just a coincidence, until I got caught up on Poehler's 'Parks and Recreation', which (is great and) is written and produced by the same guys who made the US version of The Office. I noticed that the demented psiren Tammy Swanson (ex-wife of the almighty moustachioed Ron) looks very like (uncannily like) Tina Fey, and is a cut-throat manipulator who will literally use anyone or anything and do anything to anyone or anything to get her way.
So are Tammi Swanson and Jenna Maroney actually malicious mockeries of one another being batted back and forth like a tennis ball by Fey and Poehler?
Are they actually a bit of best-friends-banter between two enlightened feminists who are having a laugh with one another?
Or am I just reading a whole load of nonsense into something which isnt actually there?
Probably.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Total Exhaustion Wipeout Collapse
You know when you've been working consistently under alot of pressure with very little let up? Ive been doing that since september. You know how sometimes when you've been going and going and going with work, and then you stop and start resting, you sometimes get sick? thats definitely happening to me now.
Ive gone from essay deadlines, exams, driving test, car purchase and the usual pressures and responsibilities of parenthood to the next 4 months (13 May - 13 Sept) of no deadlines, lectures or academic demands, and my body has realized this, waved a little white flag, and collapsed into repair mode. Ive spent the last few days deeling ill, dizzy, depressed and exhausted... its pretty lame. I kinda want to hibernate untill all this nasty-feeling-ness is gone.
Ive gone from essay deadlines, exams, driving test, car purchase and the usual pressures and responsibilities of parenthood to the next 4 months (13 May - 13 Sept) of no deadlines, lectures or academic demands, and my body has realized this, waved a little white flag, and collapsed into repair mode. Ive spent the last few days deeling ill, dizzy, depressed and exhausted... its pretty lame. I kinda want to hibernate untill all this nasty-feeling-ness is gone.
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Driving Test
Well, today is the 7th of May, and 2 days ago around this time I had just passed my driving test. It was one of the most nerve-wracking experiences of my life. I was more nervous taking the test than I was on my wedding day, than I was on the night I proposed. It was awful. I couldn't sleep the night before, I ended up taking antihistamines to knock myself out so I would actually get a few hours before my 730 pickup outside the college! I spent the entire day before (the 4th) just filling my time with as many different activities as I could come up with to distract myself from being nervous about the test. I have driven a manual car for 3 years no problems at all in the states, and so have a considerable headstart on most learners, but I knew how easy it is to make the 1 'major' fault it takes to completely disqualify myself in the test. The examiner was a small balding bearded round Sheffield-type bloke with a very strong accent who looked like a slightly squashed John Peel. He was nice enough though.
I took the test in Buxton, and passed with only 5 out of a possible 15 minor faults. After the test, Simon my BSM driving instructor dropped me off in Sheffield, where I did a little shopping, then hopped on a train to Stockport and bought a car. We got a 2002 Kia Rio Sedan (automatic - so Sydney can drive it once she passes her test), which is in great nick, has A/C, a cd player an iPod hook up, 44,000 miles on the clock, gets around 37 miles to the gallon, and is easily spacious enough for the three of us and all our stuff for when we go on holiday, or to visit the family back in the North East. All in all, an excellent deal, and a blessing I am thankful for.
Now I can start gigging again, I can get a decent part time job, we can go get groceries whenever we need them (oh luxury!) and we can actually explore the beautiful part of the country we live in. One is thoroughly pleased, what what.
I took the test in Buxton, and passed with only 5 out of a possible 15 minor faults. After the test, Simon my BSM driving instructor dropped me off in Sheffield, where I did a little shopping, then hopped on a train to Stockport and bought a car. We got a 2002 Kia Rio Sedan (automatic - so Sydney can drive it once she passes her test), which is in great nick, has A/C, a cd player an iPod hook up, 44,000 miles on the clock, gets around 37 miles to the gallon, and is easily spacious enough for the three of us and all our stuff for when we go on holiday, or to visit the family back in the North East. All in all, an excellent deal, and a blessing I am thankful for.
Now I can start gigging again, I can get a decent part time job, we can go get groceries whenever we need them (oh luxury!) and we can actually explore the beautiful part of the country we live in. One is thoroughly pleased, what what.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Some Joel Stuff
Joel ate a 'You are what you eat' fridge magnet last weekend. Which seems an ironic and poetic sentence upon the arrogant magnet for being so cocky.
Also his list of bizarre foods has been expanded somewhat - he's eaten raw compost, blue pool cue chalk, chunks of his bath sponge, cat food, and the black cushiony felt that goes on toddler swings in the play park. Gross.
He's taken to wandering around saying 'bug-a-bug-a-bug-a-bug-a', and also said 'Billion Milligan Butt-Gun' for no good reason the other day, which has to be a name of a band in the future, or there is simply no justice in the world.
Also his list of bizarre foods has been expanded somewhat - he's eaten raw compost, blue pool cue chalk, chunks of his bath sponge, cat food, and the black cushiony felt that goes on toddler swings in the play park. Gross.
He's taken to wandering around saying 'bug-a-bug-a-bug-a-bug-a', and also said 'Billion Milligan Butt-Gun' for no good reason the other day, which has to be a name of a band in the future, or there is simply no justice in the world.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
I only believe in God so I can get into Heaven
I don't want to know if people are dying
I don't want to know if hell is real
I don't want to know that my creature comforts
Could be sacrificed to save somebody's life
I only believe in God so I can get into Heaven
So my comfortable life can carry on forever
I don't want to hear that God might not want me
To always be secure or live my dreams
I don't want a God who makes me a servant
Who doesn't want to make me rich or thin
Don't tell me I'm not entitled to the things I've always wanted
I'd rather die still trying, than give them up and live
I only believe in God so I can get into Heaven
So my comfortable life can carry on forever
I don't want to give any time or money
'Cause I just want to live to please myself
I'll die for my faith so you'll think I'm a hero
But I won't do a thing unless it profits me
I'll give Him an hour on a Sunday morning
And He should be grateful for this kingly sacrifice
I only believe in God so I can get into Heaven
So my comfortable life can carry on forever
Rev 3:15-17, 20-21
I know your works; you are neither cold not hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say 'I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.' You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.
Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to eat with you and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a place on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
I don't want to know if hell is real
I don't want to know that my creature comforts
Could be sacrificed to save somebody's life
I only believe in God so I can get into Heaven
So my comfortable life can carry on forever
I don't want to hear that God might not want me
To always be secure or live my dreams
I don't want a God who makes me a servant
Who doesn't want to make me rich or thin
Don't tell me I'm not entitled to the things I've always wanted
I'd rather die still trying, than give them up and live
I only believe in God so I can get into Heaven
So my comfortable life can carry on forever
I don't want to give any time or money
'Cause I just want to live to please myself
I'll die for my faith so you'll think I'm a hero
But I won't do a thing unless it profits me
I'll give Him an hour on a Sunday morning
And He should be grateful for this kingly sacrifice
I only believe in God so I can get into Heaven
So my comfortable life can carry on forever
Rev 3:15-17, 20-21
I know your works; you are neither cold not hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say 'I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.' You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked.
Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to eat with you and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a place on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.
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