All posts filed under: Health

Beyond Resolutions: Why I Have no Idea Where This Progress is Coming From

Published by Trotzendorff

New Year’s res­o­lu­tions are a curi­ous thing. Lucky for me, I don’t real­ly need them to aim for more or less in my life. For instance, I don’t have to push myself to exer­cise; it’s such a nat­ur­al part of my dai­ly rou­tine that it’s not even nec­es­sary. But of course, I have goals and desires too. Like run­ning pain-free – after near­ly two years of a nag­ging Achilles ten­don. Or build­ing strength – after tear­ing my bicep ten­don last fall, it’s not just a wish, but a necessity. 

A man is sitting in a grainfield practicing breathing techniques.

A method worth exploring?

Published by Trotzendorff

It’s been a strange irony that I, lying in my bed, should stum­ble upon a book that deals so inti­mate­ly with the very thing that had brought me low. Covid had robbed me of my strength and left me short of breath, and yet it was in the midst of this strug­gle that I found dis­trac­tion and, yes, a tune up.

A woman seen from behind is running in a park.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on runners around the world

Published by Trotzendorff

You prob­a­bly have expe­ri­enced it your­self, or you may have read head­lines like this one: «Run­ning is enjoy­ing a boom because of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic». And yes, it’s true. Gyms were closed. Spin class­es and boot camps had been can­celed. Peo­ple were stuck at home for most of the day for a long time. So run­ning has seen a boom dur­ing the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. But what about the over­all sta­tis­tics? Did peo­ple run more dur­ing the pandemic?

Woman eating french fries.

The Palatability Theory

Published by Trotzendorff

There are clear and unan­i­mous fig­ures that obe­si­ty has increased over time, espe­cial­ly in rich nations like the Unit­ed States. On aver­age peo­ple today weigh more and have high­er body fat per­cent­ages than their recent ances­tors at sim­i­lar ages. But why is that the case? One wide­spread assump­tion is the palata­bil­i­ty the­o­ry. It posits that the pri­ma­ry cause is an increase in reward sig­nals in the mod­ern envi­ron­ment from processed food, medi­at­ed by the moti­va­tion sys­tem in the brain, caus­ing us to overeat.

People sitting in a coffee bar.

Protective Effects against Asthma

Published by Trotzendorff

I was just hav­ing my first cup of cof­fee in the morn­ing, when an arti­cle on sprudge.com popped up in my feed read­er. As an asth­mat­ic and cof­fee enthu­si­ast it nat­u­ral­ly caught my atten­tion. It reports about a study by med­ical pro­fes­sion­als from Korea’s Hal­lym Uni­ver­si­ty, Hanyang Uni­ver­si­ty, and Kang­dong Sacred Heart Hos­pi­tal, with research find­ing that mod­er­ate cof­fee con­sump­tion can low­er the fre­quen­cy of symp­toms asso­ci­at­ed with asthma.