Booster Months Shall Be Fun
Weekly Wellbeing Zest #4- The Most Unrecognised Wellbeing Articles On Substack
Weekly Wellbeing Zest #4
The title will always be a creative mashup of thematic aspects from the 5 articles for the week - so yes, sometimes a scrambled mess of my mind!
What is this?
This is a weekly summary of some of, what I consider, hidden gems, undervalued or simply not-so-obvious but remarkable articles that relate to our health and wellbeing. If you want to know more what this weekly “zest” is about, please check out the introduction the first one here!
Week 4 of the Weekly Wellbeing Zest has (in no particular order of significance or preference):
(Dr Marcin’s category: mental health)So, you probably think that now that January is over (truthfully it ain’t, but I know what you see when you look at this weeks calendar!), but I think that what Austin has proposed and outlined here does not have to be exclusive to the end of each year. As a matter of fact, I think it is fine if you even apply this to every week *gasp/shock. Yeah, I know, cringe commenting will not help my writing – yet, just imagine if you accepted Austin’s concept of the “dead” week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve to every single week. As he highlighted
“What I’m doing with Dead Week is not giving up, but letting go of the year. “
I am more or less convinced that the concept of the “classic” weekend is almost gone by now (just judging by the amount of hours that every says they are working), and that is bad. Truly, I think it is one of the main causes for the continuous increases in reported, measured and experienced mental stress. Yes, I write this all the time, I know, but if you think you can spent >65% of your awake time every day being productive, you are wrong. And if you want to know more about the details of what the dead week, or “regular dead day” as I would call them here for this weekend example, entails go check out Austin’s perceptive article.
How to even start here? My newsletter has “Play more.” in the title! And here we have a quite successful comedian making a bold statement about doing comedy just because. Yeah sure, she now achieved commercial success and has her own tour – but that is not what is her reason for doing it in the first place, like at all. This might be particularly attached to activities that we, as a wider society, have come to scorn as “time wasters”, but people really need to stop looking for outcomes or rewards in everything in their life. Just do stuff for the sake of it. Especially, if it is playful – it is essential for your brain! There you go, I gave you a reason. Sashi on the other hand has a much more interesting story for showing you how to “just have fun”.
Enjoying this little collection of non-standard health & wellbeing articles? Or do write my own stuff too! If you are interested, consider subscribing please:
The In Pursuit Annual Report by
(Dr Marcin’s category: mental health)Yes, another “backlog” of summaries of people’s years. Before you let out a disappointed sigh, just go check it out – even if you are not a writer. Especially if you are a fitness and health nut. Why? Because I know that there is heaps of you out there like me who continuously run on scrap paper notes, napkin maths, and terribly organised “plans”. And that is OK. Yeah, Sara gives at the start of her yearly summary a neat overview of her own little nightmare organisation that does, at least on the outside, appear to be a problem per se. She makes also good points about focus – also something the average fitness and health bandwagonista should keep in mind.
Doubts. They suck, even if they have some sort of survival function – probably, I have not actually ever learned anything about that. Alexandra shares her own doubts about a past experience with a major life change, personal and professional (I guess they are always combined, are they not?). She highlights in a simple but at the same time deep level how we continuously focus the improbabilities of ideas. That is not bad per se, but we should ask more often “Why do I think this will not work?”. Almost like solid feedback loop follow up when people tell you that your idea is bad. Why? Have a bit more believe in yourself, and as I always used to say in the elite sports environment: we got to experiment. We got try stuff to figure out stuff.
Saying you like January is a bit like saying you like Nickelback, a difficult position to defend' by
(Dr Marcin’s category: emotional health)January is a great month, and Anna puts it together why. At least from her perspective. Instead of dreading the continuous cycle of setting goals, plans etc., we might just embrace this as a sort of entry booth to the new counting period. This is like the flipside to
‘s dead week concept. How about “warm-up” month? Yeah, nah, go read Anna’s article, she will share with you how to approach this with a bit more grace than me. Then, maybe, just maybe, you do not need to see every month, every week, and every part of your life as an endless to-do list, progress chasing step towards… you see, I do not even know.Go read their articles please! Even if it does not appear at first interesting to you, at least start. There is so many little insights and lessons that you can observe outside of the usual content you might enjoy as a health, fitness and wellbeing junkie. As usual, thanks to the writers – no, they do not know ahead of time that they are featured here.
If you read all the way here, I would like to share:
I have read way too many articles here on Substack that have perked my interest to just keep this to 1x per week. No clue though how exactly I will deal with it, but that is OK. Now, I have been holding back on 2 articles that have yet to be finished and edited, but mainly because I am just enjoying reading, conceptualising and writing other things – as you might have recently found with the “Do You Even Matter?” article. Plus, my wife is starting lecturing season again, so I am trying to give her the best possible start there. Clearly, that is slightly more important – social health capacity has to be kept on highs!
References
Feel free to checkout references for all my articles in this document.