Or how important it is to learn to cooperate with our bodies and what might happen if we fail.

I have spent last week rotting in the bad. Turned out sport can bring something more than fun, good mood and energy. It may also bring injuries. And I was unlucky enough to not know how bad one fall might be. Luckily, it seems it won’t have major long term impacts. But the short term - that’s where I’m now and it’s worth an article.

Last week felt like rolling back to the life I had 5-7 years ago. Going to sleep at random time, waking up randomly, feeling week and bad. Despite of the fact the source of these changes was very specific injury - I decided to observe the changes and write about it. Just to make it straight - that was a real survival and fight with the physical pain that was not willing to leave. Like completely ignoring drugs. I do expect this is the payment for the fast restoration. Even funnier - most of the pain has been caused by my own muscles, that I failed to regain control of.

Overall it wasn’t nice. But interesting to observe how body took control over specific parts and functions, completely ignoring the brain and the willpower. Recovery mode was dictating everything. When I sleep (if that could be called that way), when I eat, when to stand, when to lie down. And this was the truth that was always hard for me. We are not in full control of our bodies. It has own basics and may refuse signal from the conscious level. This made me to think: this is probably what happens when a person isn’t even trying to connect. Body lives on it’s own, mind on it’s own. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for the biggest part of my life.

Medicine may help. This is another truth. A few drugs I’ve got from doctors failed to get me to the goal. The goal was to have at least few hours of uninterrupted sleep. For a week. Body was demanding changing positions and move quite actively, therefore I had to spend time waking up, and standing up for a while. On the third day I gave up understood I have to follow and let my body do what it has to do. Cooperate.

And therefore I’ve been spending days doomscrolling. Of course even simplest tasks were taking up to 10x time, so I had not so many time to scroll. Nevertheless, I was not able to consume more or less serious content. Nervous system was demanding a distraction to ease the life. Not another source of good knowledge. Not high quality content. Ease the pain.

And here are the conclusions. Physical problems are harder to ignore. I learned body may claim control and force specific behaviors. But what about mental health? Stress? Anxiety? It reshapes our behaviour. We might try to ease the pain by distracting and brainroting. Ignoring the injuries and traumas. Not being able to identify it. Not seeing reasons and deviations in our behaviour. Slowly falling apart, pretending that’s the life. Endlessly adapting. Until avoidance of the pain becomes our lifestyle.

Comparing to the body injuries we must acknowledge once important difference. Nobody is going to save us. Nobody is going to reclaim the control. It’s our goal to take the responsibility, recognize issues and fix these. Getting from survival to the life we want. Learning our lessons. Owning the outcomes.