No, not those! (Though it probably doesn’t hurt, in the list below.)
Just to remind myself and others that when you are feeling stressed or misanthropic, nothing beats ensuring the following bodily needs are met:
1. Sufficient sleep (at least two nights in a row of seven-eight hours)
2. Sufficient non-junk food (stuff your grandmother would recognize as edible) and water
3. Sufficient physical exercise. In my case that was upper-body work this weekend – painting the interior of cabinets – mowing the lawn, and trimming down the ivy. Biking to work today.
That’s it for today’s pearls of wisdom. Make yourself a necklace and show me how much better it looks on you.
P.S. Fourth grant rejection in a row today, and since #5 was a Challenge grant response…
I don’t work on cancer – and my ideas are too novel, more’s the pity… hmmm, new blog post coming on. Maybe.
Fourth grant rejection in a row
Ow, Heather! Sorry to hear that!! Go get some sleep and come up with less imaginative/novel ideas…
Heather, I love your lists! I was just about to look up some de-stressing methods but you’ve done it for me. :) So sorry about the grant rejection…I’ve heard so many developmental biologists complain that the field is not appreciated enough or does not seem as pressing for funds as cancer research. It’s unfortunate but I know you will come through. :)
Stress, junk food, and insufficient exercise are the worst combination EVAH. Unfortunately, it’s a combination that arises in many situations in academia: grant deadlines, study section, busy teaching schedule, etc. If I have to put up with stress and junk food, then I need lots of exercise to compensate.
I loathe exercise as such. But I never put up with junk food – I actively seek it out at times, and shun it at others :-)
Thanks for the kind words. Added to grants and student deadlines are an upcoming move to organize, summer plans for four individuals, and a hazy horizon still when I thought skies would have cleared up long ago. Like in April.
It’s never just the creativity of the projects that gets rejected – it has also to do with conception and presentation, of course. So, learning experiences; but like many others, all my (few) lab personnel depends on me pulling in some funds.
The best thing about doing exercise is that it enables you to eat more junk food. I’m hungry after a bike ride, famished after a run, and starving-hungry-must-eat-NOW after a swim.
I’m sorry to hear about the funding situation. I’m hearing the same story all over the internet right now. It sucks.
What is it about swimming? Running, gym exercises, cycling, yoga, soccer, ultimate frisbee, polocrosse, horseriding … none of these activities makes me hungry. In fact, they’re usually appetite suppressants, especially when the weather is hot.
But swimming makes me ravenous. Today I swam a mile, around noon, and I was tempted to make a detour to Sonic, which has the junkiest of junk food, after my swim. I ate a handful of dry-roasted peanuts as soon as I got home. ???!
I don’t know, maybe part of the dive response? Or a response to the cold? (Skiing makes me hungry too, but not as much as swimming).
Bad luck Heather – don’t let it get to you.
And I think I may be 0 for 3 on your list of ‘bodily needs’. Worrying.
I don’t think it’s the cold for me … I used to swim laps in a medical center pool that was also used for hydrotherapy, and the water temperature was quite warm. Still had the hungries afterward.
I’ve only gone cross-country skiing, and usually I have a touch of altitude sickness, and therefore I’m not hungry. Same goes for climbing.
If anyone had got between me and the jar of peanuts after swimming today, I would have smacked that person upside the head with the styrofoam kickboard I was carrying. ;-)
Heh! My husband called a couple of weeks ago to say that he was heading home from his friend’s house with some food the friend had made for us. I replied that I’d just come back from the pool and wasn’t sure I could wait that long (the friend’s house is about 15 minutes drive away). Sure enough, by the time he got home I’d already eaten a big bowl of leftover pasta, and had plenty of room for a second dinner!
I am really sorry to hear about the grant.
I’m really impressed with the productive nature of your list of physical exercise list (I just came back from kick boxing aerobics and the interior of my cupboards did not benefit).
:-) heh – but they weren’t my cupboards, so I had extra motivation. And peanuts – I buy them shelled by the two-pound bag. Although if I had got my funding, I’d be investing in shelled cashews, yum!
Swimming is just a better workout, I think. I love the sleep of the just that descends on people of all ages after a day at the beach, for instance.