Dr. Shellie

Amazing. The continual sneezing, nose-blowing, and coughing has STOPPED.

Whenever I talk to a friend who is anxious, worried, going through hard times, or agonizing over a big decision, I tell them to go running. They don’t usually take me seriously. But running is one thing that I can always count on to make me feel better. There is something about the regular, rhythmic motion that sets my mind free from the little circles it is running around in and lets me relax. Afterwards I feel really good– not just physically, but mentally. Problems I thought were gigantic settle into perspective and I can think more creatively about how to solve them. I don’t run very far or fast, but it works.

It’s common to talk about "work-life balance," as if work and life were competing forces threatening to crowd out all your waking hours in a day. To put things very simply, I think you want to be happy about your life and what you are doing with it. You can think quite a bit about all the different factors you want to balance, and how you want to allocate your time between your goals. But what is most important is not figuring out precisely how to carve up your time– it’s recognizing when you are NOT in balance– when you are anxious, worried, stressed out, unhealthy, and don’t have the energy to do the things you want to do. In this kind of state, your perspective gets kind of skewed, and what you think are your best, most carefully-designed plans are likely to be good for nothing at all. I’d say, go running (or swimming, hiking, or biking) until you feel better.

Every ten seconds or so, there is a loud, sharp crashing sound as something hits my roof. Outside on the ground are thousands of small, green acorns. It’s quite a surprise that these two facts are related– such a big sound from such a small acorn?

Just back from a trip, and I am a little bit sick. Most inconvenient, as I have all sorts of deadlines and would love to have a well-functioning mind and body. But I tend to pick up a cold or sore throat on airplanes. I have heard that McKinsey consultants and similar types fly once a week or more… how do they do this? Are some people much more robust than I, and do they never get sick after plane trips?

I am not really an "outdoorsy" person. I do not get particularly excited about the prospect of driving four hours to visit a lake, mountain, waterfall, etc. and then turning around to drive four hours home again, as do several of my nature-loving, city-avoiding friends. I have been known to demand tea in the morning before agreeing to leave the campsite for a hike. But I do like to do things outside from time to time– to go look at interesting natural features, animals and birds– out of a general committment to experiencing the various interesting things the world has to offer. And so from time to time I appear to be a very outdoorsy sort of person, and return to work on Monday morning with extremely sore muscles from kayaking and strangely-shaped patches of burnt skin that I missed while applying sun block. Today would be one of those days.