A Little Fresh Air: Walking It Off.

Brentford - five miles from home 

= a few cobwebs dusted from my mind

I've been trying to take a more sensible approach to working off some of the stuffing and pastry-based products Christmas always includes for me, and just aiming for a number of steps in a day. Sensible rather than ultra juicing (kale only, of course) whilst doing a billion squats a day is the only way at the moment.

I don't have the time to run during daylight hours, and I have about as much enthusiasm for getting up in the dark and rain to run as I have to spend an entire 5 seconds listening to a 1970s open university programme on physics. I'm aiming for 10000 steps a day, which is just about doable with the number of escalator steps plus making meetings at least a floor away from where I am, so I have to clock some extra paces.

Syon House and the Thames on a cold, clear day

The year has brought some new responsibilities, which have given me much to think about, and little time in which to put thoughts into actions. As the new network chair of our mental health network at work I am really keen to follow on the amazing work the last chair and committee put in, not least since supporting mental health has become so central to my life.

Free as a bird. How I want my mind to be.

For this reason I was thrilled to take on a voluntary role leading digital and social communications for the City Mental Health Alliance, too, which is an incredible opportunity to help support colleagues in the city beyond my own organisation. These opportunities will help me to achieve my goal of reaching more organisations with the truth about what mental health really means (from my own perspective especially) and that people can thrive professionally with the right level of support from their work and the care they give to themselves.

Kew Gardens from the tow path. Nothing but views.

Critically, while any change is going on, I need to make sure that I take care of my mental health, so I don't risk exhaustion and having to give up these things, which would risk bringing out that old chestnut self-loathing, always a very unwelcome guest in my life. "Balance," I keep telling myself, "balance." I really need to find this as much as possible to keep me well, at work and out of hospital. Enough activity, enough active rest and enough physical rest and time out from doing anything at all. I need all of these things for the best chance to stay well.

Even if it means getting a bid mucky, I'm up for a challenge.

Mentally and physically, I think.

It's definitely easier said than done. I'm the first to admit that I'm not very good at saying 'no' to exciting opportunities, even if they might take a lot of work. I don't want the fact that I have depression to get in the way of taking on ambitious projects in my life.

Choosing pathways. Nearly six miles in.

I admit that in the past I've tried to manage an ever increasing workload by ploughing on through it at all hours of the day (particularly in the past, trying to get promoted and actively panicking that if I made a single 'mistake' that I would miss out). Now I know that working 100 hour weeks is not even realistic for one week, let alone a string of them. So even though my stomach currently has butterflies at the amount of work I have on for the weeks ahead, I have forced myself not to spend the weekend working or completing ever more activities. The weekends are there for a reason, and I will just get ill and stressed if I don't have a break.

Kew Bridge and rowing.

I think I chose a slightly more sedentary activity, but lovely to see!

Yesterday, then, I decided to spend time on things that would help me to take time out and hopefully get a different perspective. And what often helps me is to get out and about, into the fresh (and ideally not rainy) air and walk.

And it's quite hard to get lost!

I learned about London on foot. I first moved to Archway, single and with a lot of friends well established with their weekends filled, so, with no other plans, I used to walk all the way down Holloway Road on a Sunday morning and keep going, into the deserted city, its austere stone blocks feeling almost as cold as Oxford on any autumnal morning as no pedestrians and few cars blunted the sharp wind racing around its tall, noble cornices. Nowadays I really am spoiled for choice, living near to two of our most beautiful royal parks - Richmond and Bushy - and a five minute walk from the Thames.

Perfect running weather. Or walking. Or rowing. 

Perfect.

My mother taught me to be a walker in Nottingham, where I grew up. To my horror, on days when at least half of my classmates had to stay away from school due to snow, because we lived in the centre of town, there was no discussion: we would walk. I find it faintly comical now, because the walk was fewer than two miles in length, but to my five or six year old self it was a marathon distance, on top of the massive unfairness of having to go to school when I wanted to stay at home and make snowmen.

Under the district line across to Chiswick. 

I have many happy memories of walking now, though, and it has always kept me - relatively - fit. Mat and I have a shared love of walking around London, which his friends exploited when he was made to walk (for pleasure) from Hammersmith to central London for his stag do, and made to (for their pleasure) down a shot chaser with every pint consumed, at every pub, along the way. Ouch.

A booze-free walk for me. Phew!

I had to walk to the doctor two weeks ago as I appear to have developed sleep apnoea... always a delight to have a new condition to add to my collection... and wanted the exercise. It has been so wet and miserable here in January so far that I have shunned running and even a walk to the station has been a chore.

Made it to Chiswick Bridge... nearly there!

But walking makes me feel so much better. Or at least prevents me from feeling any worse, if I'm feeling unwell. I have always found a lovely rhythm to walking. I can listen to the birds or the river or the traffic; I can listen to podcasts (Woman's Hour is a firm favourite) or audio books, or I can listen to the Frozen soundtrack or the Trout quintet, with no one any the wiser what music I might have in my ears!

Under the bridge

As I walk, I don't care so much about whatever I've left behind. Part of me is concentrating on not falling over, so there can only be so much focus on the extended to-do list; part of me is listening to the soundtrack of my choice. And lastly, my eyes are part devouring, part dwelling on, the sights to every side.

Mud. Nothing doing. Mud.

I'm lucky to live in a place where I can walk so far along the river to many destinations, to the shops two or three miles away, depending on the direction, or farther afield, and all bypassing beautiful houses, boats, locks, gull, herons, cormorants and many river birds, proprietary robins, bridges, gardens and streams and rivers. And of course, the city buildings and omnipresent sky.

A mere spattering. I got off lightly!

The mud is another matter, and not particularly top of my list of things I want to adorn myself with as a fashionable accessory. Elizabeth Bennet may have got away with it, but she was, after all, the wittiest of women, and the beauty of Hertfordshire, as even Mr. Darcy realised in the end.

 "She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild."
   "She did indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why must she be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair, so untidy, so blowsy!"
   "Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it, not doing its office."
   "Your picture may be very exact, Louisa," said Bingley; "but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice."

There are other benefits. The assault of nature experienced while walking is another way of practising mindfulness. Except of course that you're not really practising, it's got you with both hands. There is no way that I can just ignore sights like those above when I'm walking. In fact I think I made myself a bit late yesterday by stopping so many times to take photographs.

Even the river bank is fascinating.

I've seen mice, rats (I like rats by the river)

and many other lovely animals and plants.

As well as all the above, it is lovely to meet so many people along the way on the river - quite different to my earlier north London experiences early on a Sunday morning. Cyclists, runners, yes, but walkers of all ages and many nationalities with dogs, dressed for a smart Saturday lunch, dressed for another 30 miles in well-trodden walking boots, it is simply lovely to spend an hour (or three) on a bracing walk. It warms you up in the cold, and warms me through to participate in this community activity, albeit on my own, with a simple smile of "Hello" to those I pass.

Dry routes are good. As long as you're still dry.

Yesterday I met friends in Barnes (west London) for a pub lunch. And there really only is one thing I love better than a pub lunch with good friends, and that is a pub lunch with good friends that I feel that I've thoroughly earned at the end! I had my work cut out to make it there on time with a slightly more relaxed stroll with Mat to Richmond (three miles) before the remaining five and a half to cover at a considerably speedier pace!

End in sight!

This week will be very busy again, and I know that my to do list is only minutely shorter for the few things I've accomplished today. (Then again, I did make it to the tip today. Things really don't get much more exciting than that.) However busy it will be, though, I have breathed fresh air and had a decent attempt at exercise. And there are always West Wing conversations to be had. That's my tip of the week, dear professional readers. If you want to get a meeting with someone who doesn't have time for a meeting, go and meet them as their meeting ends and walk them to their next meeting. Polish your elevator pitch or the points you need to raise to a minute's chat and you might be surprised what you accomplish in a short walk around the building (as well as adding a few more steps to your day)!

Yeah. Not sure...

I slept better, and woke surprisingly rested (albeit with rather aching legs this afternoon). As always, I will see how the week goes. But tomorrow when I get on those escalators at Waterloo, I'll know that a few steps are - in more ways than one - in the right direction. Take care. x

Hooray! A lemonade for the muddy woman with the purple hair.

A Day in the Life MH Part Four: A Day in My Little Life

It’s Wednesday 26^th August and this is the last of the four days I’m participating in A Day in the life MH. I’m still ill, struggling with persistent low mood over the last three weeks more intensively than I have in the last year, which doesn’t make any sense to me because it’s summer and surely I should be happy in the summer? The sun is shining (well, some of the time), the trees are green (the grass is yellow, despite the fact it keeps pissing it down) and I have September to look forward to, one of my favourite times of the year, when I can wear winter colours again. It reminds me of new shoes, shiny and smelling strongly of leather from their box when I put them on for the first time, the scent bursting out of the tissue paper and up my nose as a symbol of going ‘back to school’. It's good to imagine that actually, to know that I can feel things outside of the numbness, even though rarely.

You can read my other posts here:

• A Day In The Life MH Part One (Friday 7th November)
• A Day In The Life MH Part Two (Tuesday 10th February)
• A Day in The Life MH Part Three (Sunday 10th May)

I've been struggling to write because of being ill, but I really wanted to contribute to the last part of the Day in the Life Project, so here is my entry. My short term memory is completely shot to pieces at present. My short term memory is completely shot to pieces at present. But I wanted to finish this, and since I took the day off and filled it with not much, here it is, my fourth and last entry for this project. It feels good to finish something even though it feels like I'm not up to much right now. 

Done! It feels good to have completed this project. Completing things can be hard when I'm ill.

Today I took the day off from work because things are quiet and I thought since I had holiday left that it might be useful to rest.

I am always trying to get the balance right between resting and being active, because on the one hand, if I do too much (work, socialising ,running, running around doing errands, tidying, cleaning (yes, I actually clean sometimes) then I risk making myself so stressed and exhausted that I feel overwhelmed and the next day, and the next, and the next start to feel harder and tiny little tasks impossible. 

To promote my activity, I went for a run first thing, just under six miles, to try to take advantage of the time to do a long run in the week without having to get up at 5:00am to do it. I washed and changed and put on lovely crisp clean clothes, then went out to the shop to post a card and buy a sandwich. But when I got back to the house and through the front door, I was too exhausted at the thought of picking up the single envelope on the mat to reach down and get it, so I left it there. This wasn’t the six mile run. It was the depression. I’d got through two, three maybe, hours of activity, and after that I was done for the day.

The day before I had given a talk at work as part of a new programme being piloted to help people understand what resilience means and how they can support others. I knew I’d be fine to give the talk, and I was. 

At the end, though, I was struggling a bit to hold back my emotions and from crying and when I left work later that day I was reminded of my own sadness about the life I’ve had and its downs. I was sinking again. Even though people said that it was good, that it was brave, I was still sinking, weighted down by the anchor of all my memories. 

And I was still swimming upwards, but I was caught in the whirls underwater and couldn’t move much in either direction, away from the harmful, hateful thoughts or towards the good.

I stayed in bed for most of the rest of my day off. I read “ALittle Life” by Hanya Yanagihara. This is one of the saddest (if not actually the absolute saddest) books I have ever read. One of those books that takes my breath from me, winds me almost, and when I look up from the page the world takes a couple of moments to come back to me, so lost was I in the world the author had created. I probably shouldn’t have continued reading it.

It resonated with me when the main character says, “I feel like all I do is disappoint you, and I’m sorry for that, I’m sorry for all of it. But I’m really trying. I’m doing the best I can. I’m sorry if it’s not good enough.” I’m talking to myself here. “Why then does he insist on revisiting and replaying events that happened so long ago? Why can he not simply take pleasure in his present?” Why do I? Why can’t I?

All I did for the rest of the day was read the book. It was relaxing and it was saddening. In fact at the end of the day I had allowed myself to be drawn into the world so deeply that I was picking myself apart for all of the failures I could find in myself. I cried over my inability to get better and all the things in my past that had made me what I still consider often to be ‘defective’ and weak and broken and a failure. I rationally know I’m not but sometimes rationality doesn’t win. I wish I could end this Day in the Life process saying that it does, always, but for me riding the waves of depression mean a lot flotsam and jetsam when I expect it and when I don’t. So to bed. And hoping for a better day tomorrow.

#GetSetToGo How Running Helps My Mental Health

#GetSetToGo with @MindCharity

This time last year I was one week into my spell in hospital to treat my acute depression. Throughout this hospital stay, though, part of my treatment plan was to continue to exercise, whether this meant running or walking, every day, because I so identify with the benefits one can derive from physical exercise. At the time we were trying to address my sleeplessness problem where I would often wake at 5 or even earlier and be unable to sleep for the rest of the night, in addition to having a broken night of sleep throughout. And we were also trying to calm me down from the completely ‘on’ Jessica that has to keep moving at all times so that nothing gets missed, but which has the negative side of keeping my mind permanently switched to hyper speed, racing through hundreds of different items on my multiple, mental “to-do” lists.

I started to run in 2009, thinking that if I were to be able to keep eating as I desired (and desire, I did!) I would have to start keeping fit in order to allow for that. I was eating about 1200 calories a day or so to try to keep my weight down, but when a ‘normal’ restaurant meal (or in fact a meal of any kind) was afoot, let alone when wine was served with dinner, of course, that base level went out of the window, and I knew that in order to have more flexibility with my diet and try to make sure that my clothes still fitted. The fact that I was also getting married in 2010 also provided a time-bound incentive – the dress, the dress, the dress!

Running towards a dangling burger (nope sorry, a carrot won't do it).

At first I was hopeless at running. My biggest failure was a total inability to pace myself. Running outdoors was hopeless as in less than a minute I’d be perspiring and expiring from the sprinter’s pace I’d mistakenly put in. I tried the treadmill as an alternative, but this approach meant that I was constantly looking at the clock in front of me, panicking that I couldn’t keep going and hyperventilating myself into stopping. Interval training was one way to get out of this, but I knew if I were ever going to run any kind of distance I had to learn to pace myself.

A fair distance...ZZzzzz

I finally agreed to do a 10K and absolutely had to get past this, and eventually realised that it was more mind over matter. If I ignored the bits of my mind telling me to stop, slow down, lie down, and concentrated on the bits telling me to keep going, don’t give up, not much farther, I finally built up my stamina. And I started listening to music that drowned out the sound of my ragged wheezy breaths and (at times) made me feel like I was dancing along with Katy Perry, Florence and the Machine, and Britney and Madge. It became a treat to go and spend time with my tunes. And the fact that burgers could be wiped off the slate afterwards if I’d run far enough were a massive bonus too.

I was still running last year, but much less than before.

Running up that hill. And that road. 

And if I could swap places and not...sometimes I would

Depression affects me by killing any desire to do anything. I just want to stay in bed or on the sofa. I can just about foresee the next meal, but any other activity is hugely difficult to contemplate, let alone complete. On my day of admission, my psychiatrist and I had deliberately planned a 1-2 week stay, in order to support my depression, but without wanting to delve too deeply into buried issues and traumas that might have increased my feelings of hopelessness, worthlessness and general defectiveness and have needed a lot longer than a short term treatment plan to deal with the many past life experiences which act as triggers for my low mood and inability to function.

At five in the morning, then, I would get up (not before trying to go back to sleep) and head out for a morning walk / run in the nearby park. I wasn’t confined to the hospital grounds as some of my fellow patients needed to be, so could benefit from the stunning summer sunshine and the – just about – cool enough weather of the early morning to run / walk through a few miles and return just in time for showering, breakfast and that day’s groups to begin. It was the Elle Woods approach. “Exercise gives you endorphins. [Yes!] Endorphins make you happy. [Yes!] Happy people don’t kill their husbands.” [I guess not but I have no ability to comment…]

It certainly gives you endorphins, Elle!

I continued my exercise after hospital, determined to make it a part of my recovery plan, and even signed up to run my first half marathon in a couple of years with my husband in the early autumn. If I’m being honest, preparations hadn’t quite gone to plan. I was clinging to ‘mind over matter’ but even I knew I had to have run more than 6 miles to complete a distance over twice the length. I ran home, ten miles, from Waterloo towards the west on a sunny afternoon. I made it through sheer grit, nothing else, and had no idea whether I’d be able to complete the 13.1 miles on the day.

Then I found the excuse of all excuses to avoid the half marathon by accidentally chucking myself down the stairs, fracturing my back in two places and smashing my left elbow in (and my head, bye bye sense of smell and taste buds)… it was an original excuse, and certainly prevented running for a fair long time afterwards.

PINK post Park Run

Tendonitis, thanks so much for adding to my list of medical complaints. And at this point any positive voice in my head was severely tested. I was so annoyed, frustrated, and fed up.

After a lot of physio I’ve been doing a Couch to 5K for the last few weeks, complete with orthotics in my shoes, more to accustom my battered feet to walking and running again than to get back to fitness. I have to say, I’ve been along to many more runs as a spectator than as a participant. I love the Park Run, where I regularly get trounced by yummy mummies, daddies (complete with single and double buggies), dogs and children, septuagenarians and more. 

You can get one of those T-Shirts if you do 50 Park Runs. I'm on 12. 

#GotToStartSomewhere

Today I accompanied Mat to the Harry Hawkes 10, a ten mile race along the Thames beginning and ending in Thames Ditton. I had dressed for a run, thinking to run a few miles and walk a bit while Mat ran the course; however, and I still can’t quite believe this as I write it, they were offering a last few ‘on the day’ entries, and I found myself handing over money in order to be allowed to try my luck on this course.

Harry Hawkes Ten. Done.

Surprisingly heavy medal!

I can only write with the primary emotion of surprise that I managed to complete it (with a snail’s pace and lots of stops for drinks, but I did it nonetheless). And I had the burger afterwards, with onion rings, fries and coleslaw too. (Come on, there have to be some perks). When I can get out of the house and on to the streets it makes such a difference to my mental health. I’m just glad I can say I’m well enough to get out of bed and get out for any kind of exercise. I feel so much better afterwards, but getting out there is the hugest step, the farthest distance, the hardest stage of the entire process. @MindCharity knows how beneficial physical exercise is, which is why they’ve launched their #GetSetToGo programme.When I’m out there doing it, particularly with a crowd, sometimes I just keep going. I hope this is the start of an upward slope for my running. (Just not literally, at least for now!) Take care. xxx

Kale Me, We Need to Talk. Diets Suck.

I breathed a lighter sigh on Friday morning than on Monday because I lost two pounds last week. Well, to be honest it was six pounds lighter than the scales read on Monday, but I think I must have inadvertently swallowed some lead with my Rice Krispies on Monday morning, because - I am delighted to say - I woke up on Wednesday and weighed myself to found that I was already 4 pounds lighter than I had thought at the beginning of the week. Phew. My clothing options are ever so slightly wider then, at the end of the week, as my waist is narrower than it was, thank goodness. Still, I intend to stick to my guns and keep up the eating plan. And that plan is soup and kale and more kale, soup, with a bit of chocolate every day to make sure I stay sane.

Yeah. A friend who tells you the truth about dieting. And makes you fart. Some friend.

After yule log + cheese + roast potatoes + beef etc.etc. consumed over Christmas it was a shock to my system to return to a sparser diet, but not as unpleasant as it could have been. I have started to make deliberately healthy choices which provide fewer additives and nutrients to fill me up. And I haven't given up the sweet things: a half Twirl and a sliver of Extremely Chocolatey Sponge Roll (henceforth to be known as ECSR) from beloved M&S are on my menu of choice.

Now you're talking. YUM.

I wonder whether what I've always suspected is true, and whether there really are more calories in foods in the USA. While I was there I ate mostly a diet of egg white omelettes from the hotel kitchen (with a low fat oil spray used instead of a ladleful of butter to cook it!) and Chicken noodle soup or a Subway flat bread 6-inch sandwich for lunch. Admittedly I did sometimes eat burgers, or half a burger if I was not that hungry, for dinner. But this wasn't an everyday thing, and yet I gained weight over my two years in the states and found it very easy to shift when back in the UK and on a diet.

It's supposed to contain fewer than 300 cals but I never lost weight on the Subway diet.

I was exceptionally unmotivated last year because my depression was so severe in December and January. By February things had improved by the introduction of medication and regular CBT sessions. And then I made myself go on a boot camp for 4 days. These four days happened to occur after the dreadful floods which deluged the UK, and getting there at all was quite the challenge.

Fun times at Bootcamp in 2014 walking and running through this.

They were also most amusing because of the presence of a task master Russian émigré cracking her whip with her skinny little arms at us fatties to "Move eet" faster on our walks through flooded fields and near-hurricane strength windy beaches in the south of England. We were fed hot water and lemon at 7.30am, followed by our 2 hour walk, then breakfast of an apple, a juice or a carrot. Lavish.

NOTE: This is 4 times the portion size of my bootcamp. We were allowed one carrot. One.

Following this was an aerobics class for 2 hours (which often made me feel a bit light headed, having consumed about 5 calories since the start of the day. No wonder I lost weight!) and then lunch. Of mostly cabbage. I have to say I would recommend this type of thing only for people who are more sedate and don't want to do much exercise. And then a spa treatment or more walking, dinner of hot cabbage, and then more exercise. And then bed. It was essentially a Starvation Stay in a nice hotel, where you didn't eat but got to spend loads of money on the experience anyway, only to spend even more in the afternoon on spa treatments to take your mind off the fact that you've only eaten an 1/8th of an Able and Cole delivery box over the last 2 days.

Oh please go away.

I've never found dieting at all easy, because I am definitely in my head too much where food is concerned. I have serious and lengthy dialogues with myself saying "If I'm not really fat then I can eat that pasta", but then... "If I am serious about losing weight I can't, even if I don't really need to." And so and so on it goes.

M&S Soups. Tasty and filling and not boring. Yes!

 I'm currently enjoying Marks and Spencer spinach and quinoa and its borlotti bean and kale soups, for the most important reason: that I can actually taste the soup! Since my head trauma my sense of smell has almost gone, and this has also somewhat affected my taste buds. However, the prevalence of kale, which I almost spelled with a capital 'K', such is its (attributed) importance in the world of today's dieters and healthy eating, is a bit off-putting after a while. Not least because I don't want to pass wind as often as I draw breath. But it is quite tasty, and combined with other foods it is nice to know one is eating something healthy. And allows me to eat the ECSR. Every day. Thank goodness for small mercies. Even if that's the only small thing in my diet.

I know, I know. But my blog, my stories. Back to my lettuce now.