Tonight I was doing emails on the back seat of my car while driving home, when I realized that I could not keep my eyes open. I didn’t get enough sleep over the past days and had a pretty intensive day today and tiredness suddenly hit me. When I got home my kids wanted to play with me, but the only thing I wanted to do was sleep on the couch for a while. But if I would do that my Friday night would be virtually over, so I decided to push myself to change into my running clothes and do a short run on the treadmill.
It was not easy, especially because the heating in my gym was off so it was very cold in there. But with some loud 70s disco music on the sound system and a sitcom (muted with subtitles) in my DVD player I tried to change my mood from tired and lazy to a more positive state of mind. I decided to do a really slow run (8.5 km/h without incline) and that felt good right from the start. After a couple of minutes I started to feel more relaxed and less tired, and even increased the speed a bit. After 20 minutes I had run about 3.2 km, and I felt so good that I could have easily continued. But because the cook had finished preparing dinner, I decided to take a quick shower (hot, then ice cold for 10 seconds, and then hot again) and don’t let the others wait for me.
I felt like reborn after the run and shower, full of energy and in an excellent mood. I’m not tired at all anymore and I am ready to do a bit more work (or at least ready to writing some blog posts, like I am doing right now). Running is the best medicine for me to get me out of a lazy mood. It’s hard to explain to people that don’t do sports, but if you feel tired or down just give it a try, it just works!
I decided to reward myself with a top to toe massage at Dragonfly later tonight. As Dragonfly describes it on its site:
Our signature therapy, a combination of Oriental Foot Massage with head, shoulder and arm massage by two therapists at the same time guarantees you will leave our retreat feeling as light as a dragonfly.
A good end of the working week and the best start of the weekend!
OK..this is what is happening… It’s 6pm and I wanted to take a 30-min nap. After reading your blog, I’ve decided to get up and go to the gym.
Good to hear! Hope you feel better after working out.
Ha, I tried this once before, and it worked for me also.
running works for alot – jet lag, incipient
cold, depression/feeling low. I just have to make sure not to overdo it.
I remember son Andy’s first preschool presentation and had similar feeling to
yours. Amazing they start so young now
and this should be good prep for later
presentations. Andy’s piano recitals
at age 5 have helped him as well – he’s
now organizing his own informal home
recitals with his friends (he’s now 10)
@running – yes doing exercise straight after work does help indeed. In my early working days it was my escape from the other alternative, “The Pub”. Especially with the team I was working with when traveling around.
Presentation at 3, sounds about right..when I heard about kids going for pre-mba classes at 8-10 and job interview classes at age 9-13…