up:: Health MOC X:: Josh Waitzkin on recovery tags::#on/recovery#on/rest novelty::
Link to Reference
url: Winterruhe: Bed Rest, Sleep Recovery and the Lost Art of Convalescence - The Wild Garden
Key Ideas
This week I stumbled on this article call the Lost Art of Convalescence.
For long time readers, you know that I’ve had struggles with some pain issues. When I get stressed there’s tightness in my back and sometimes tingling in my right arm.
I’m always trying to find the right balance between managing that and still doing the activities I love.
Imagine this scene:
Last week you were sick with a fever (You got covid). Your body was aching, it was tough to think clearly. So you rest- you take your meds- you take 3 days off.
And once you’ve cleared your covid, you’re back into the office. Back to work!
You were sick, then all of a sudden you’re well enough for work? How?
What about the in between? Isn’t it possible to not be sick- but still not yet fully recovered.
We see this with “Long Covid.” There’s a whole group of people that aren’t infectious with Covid anymore, but they continue to struggle with the effects of it.
I see this with myself too!
I’m not injured, my body isn’t in danger, but I still have pain that comes and goes. I’m not 100%
Recovery is not always instant.
We used to know this, but as medical technology got better and better, we started to expect our recoveries to become more instant and automatic.
But the truth is not everything can be fixed quickly or easily and sometimes never quite completely. And there’s nothing wrong with taking a bit more time to fully recovery.
After more searching I found this book by Francis Gavin- Recovery: The Lost Art of Convalescence
Alas! No digital version - I may have to settle for the audiobook
Here’s someone else’s thoughts on the book:
Where Francis’s book is particularly strong is in delineating the different forms of recovery that humans are required to undertake.
He looks at recovery from long Covid, from profound stress and unhappiness, from misfortune.
Most powerfully of all, he describes how recovery is possible even if the biological causes of illness cannot be fixed.
It is a bigger (and more hopeful) definition of recovery to me.
That’s interesting because our society is pushing us harder and harder, and it’s becoming difficult to come back from pain and injury
That reminds me of the cult of productivity. Conversations about burnout Karoshi is Burnout in Japnese (story) It’s similar because We push ourselves to the ground with work, and we don’t give ourselves enough time to recover It’s different because there’s still this culture of push hard to build something It’s important because I want to balance it in my own life. I don’t just want to push myself into the ground