Friday Tri: Your Body Is A Machine

Because we live inside of our bodies (and well, are them) we sometimes seem surprised to discover that there are rules to keeping a body operating properly. Just like with any other machine. If you have a computer, you expect that the computer needs daily electricity to keep operating. If you have an oven, you know it needs gas or electricity to continue to work. And there are lots of unexpected glitches that will require a maintenance check by an expert. The more complicated the machine, the more expensive the expert. And your body is an awfully complicated machine.

The thing is, if you keep running your car on the cheapest gasoline and you never take it in for maintenance, what do you think will happen? It will have problems. The problems may be different for each car. One car may start stalling in the middle of traffic. Another car might make great plumes of smoke as it runs. Or simply not start at all. I suppose you might even convince yourself that it's OK, that you can learn to live with these "inconveniences" and you keep living your life the same way.

You tell yourself that you don't have "time" to deal with the maintenance needs of your body. Or you tell yourself that you can take care of them yourself, without having to go see an expert. You may even tell yourself that experts lie, that they don't know anything, that they just want to charge you money. Yeah, well, we do live in a capitalist society, so there is a financial motivation for everyone. But seriously, if you don't take time for something right now, you will pay for it later. And you will pay for it big.

I notice this when I am on deadline and I put everything off. Or when I am training for an Ironman and my kids start to hear the answer "After the Ironman" to every single question that they ask me. Guess what happens after the Ironman? I spend about a month and a half trying to get my life back in order when I am exhausted from a race. It isn't fun. I wish I didn't do this. I wish there was some way for me to deal with all my obligations when they come up. But I get it, life isn't like that. And maybe we humans aren't like that. Maybe we are designed to keep pushing ourselves past our limits.

That said, this is a plea that you will notice your body. The reason that there is a mind/body connection is that there is no mind/body dichotomy. I sometimes think that talk about "souls" has created a whole host of problems in the way that we look at ourselves. Sure, we humans are special animals because we can recognize ourselves in mirrors, we have language, and we are adaptable. Plus, those opposable thumbs. But you don't think of dogs as having a mind/body dichotomy. They are their bodies. And so are you.

Owners of animals as pets take their pets out for regular exercise. They make sure that their pets get healthy food. They try to keep them away from eating things that might be harmful for them. Yeah, I know, lots of animals have suffered from the obesity epidemic as humans have. But the point is, we think of animals in a different way. They "need" exercise. Well, so do you. Your mind will not operate properly if you do not get your daily exercise. You will become more aggressive, more irritable. You will snap at people for no reason. You will be less happy.

Pushing yourself to the limit works for about a week, in my experience. If you are going to try to do it for longer than that, all that is going to happen is that you are going to become less and less efficient and then you will discover that you can do even less than you could before. Is that a sensible way of treating your machine? Treat your machine well, and you will be happier, healthier, and also, you will get more done. Your mind will be clearer. I think you will find that your IQ actually goes up, too.

Organize your life in such a way that you don't need to be in "emergency" mode except for real emergencies (things that you cannot predict and have no control over--there are enough of those in life, believe me!) Find a pattern that works for you. Stick with it. Be good to yourself. Sometimes we end up calling this "selfish," but it makes no sense to me. If you don't do maintenance on your body, you won't be able to do anything to help anyone else. It's just the law of physics. I'm not making this up! Don't think of it as being selfish. Think of it as taking care of the machine.