The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Wed, 05 Jan 2011 09:30:57 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Goddamit, Do I Have To Start Working Out? http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/goddamit-do-i-have-to-start-working-out http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/goddamit-do-i-have-to-start-working-out#comments Wed, 05 Jan 2011 09:30:57 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/goddamit-do-i-have-to-start-working-out In a finding wildly at odds with my own experience, research shows that the more people drink the more they tend to exercise.

The study, based on replies from an annual telephone survey of hundreds of thousands of American adults about their health habits, found that “drinking is associated with a 10.1 percentage point increase in the probability of exercising vigorously,” the authors write. More specifically, “heavy drinkers exercise about 10 more minutes per week than current moderate drinkers and about 20 more minutes per week than current abstainers.” Meanwhile, the authors continue, “an extra episode of binge drinking increases the number of minutes of total and vigorous physical activity per week for both women and men.”
Now, let's be honest: You call a bunch of drunks and ask them if they work out, they're gonna say, "Yeah, sure" as they cradle the phone between their head and shoulder while furiously trying to take the top off of the fucking aspirin bottle. But let's suppose for the moment that the study holds true. There are even more disturbing revelations.

Finally, it may be that exercising allows you to become a little less stupid as a result of binge drinking. Binge drinking does, as you may have heard, kill brain cells. Repeated animal studies have shown that even one episode of serious binge drinking leads to a slaughter of brain cells, particularly in the dentate gyrus, a portion of the brain associated with memory and emotion. But a study by Dr. Leasure and her colleagues published last year showed that when rats exercised for two weeks before being allowed to binge drink, they lost fewer cells due to cell death in their dentate gyrus.

This registers with me on a deeply personal level: I have of late, but wherefore I know not, been getting increasingly less proficient in the basic human endeavors one learns to negotiate as a child. When I shower, I somehow get shampoo in my eyes, which hasn't happened since I was seven. It burns! I can no longer crack an egg—the first culinary skill my mother taught me as a little boy and something I remain stupidly proud of in that way your earliest achievements seem to stick with you longest—without several pieces of shell ending up in the bowl. I have put my boxers on backwards three times in the last week alone, which, because I am lazy and hate to take my shoes off once they're on, has resulted in my standing in front of the toilet with my pants around my ankles like some common masturbator just to perform the simple act of urination. Um, okay, probably telling you too much here. Anyway, my point is this: I am clearly regressing. In six months I will be accidentally biting the fork when I eat and dribbling liquid down the front of my shirt when I take a sip from a glass. Because there is no history of dementia in my family, I can only assume this is a result of my deep love affair with drink. Please, please, please, Science, do not tell me I need to start exercising to prevent any further collapse. It would be the absolute final indignity.

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]]> In a finding wildly at odds with my own experience, research shows that the more people drink the more they tend to exercise.

The study, based on replies from an annual telephone survey of hundreds of thousands of American adults about their health habits, found that “drinking is associated with a 10.1 percentage point increase in the probability of exercising vigorously,” the authors write. More specifically, “heavy drinkers exercise about 10 more minutes per week than current moderate drinkers and about 20 more minutes per week than current abstainers.” Meanwhile, the authors continue, “an extra episode of binge drinking increases the number of minutes of total and vigorous physical activity per week for both women and men.”
Now, let's be honest: You call a bunch of drunks and ask them if they work out, they're gonna say, "Yeah, sure" as they cradle the phone between their head and shoulder while furiously trying to take the top off of the fucking aspirin bottle. But let's suppose for the moment that the study holds true. There are even more disturbing revelations.

Finally, it may be that exercising allows you to become a little less stupid as a result of binge drinking. Binge drinking does, as you may have heard, kill brain cells. Repeated animal studies have shown that even one episode of serious binge drinking leads to a slaughter of brain cells, particularly in the dentate gyrus, a portion of the brain associated with memory and emotion. But a study by Dr. Leasure and her colleagues published last year showed that when rats exercised for two weeks before being allowed to binge drink, they lost fewer cells due to cell death in their dentate gyrus.

This registers with me on a deeply personal level: I have of late, but wherefore I know not, been getting increasingly less proficient in the basic human endeavors one learns to negotiate as a child. When I shower, I somehow get shampoo in my eyes, which hasn't happened since I was seven. It burns! I can no longer crack an egg—the first culinary skill my mother taught me as a little boy and something I remain stupidly proud of in that way your earliest achievements seem to stick with you longest—without several pieces of shell ending up in the bowl. I have put my boxers on backwards three times in the last week alone, which, because I am lazy and hate to take my shoes off once they're on, has resulted in my standing in front of the toilet with my pants around my ankles like some common masturbator just to perform the simple act of urination. Um, okay, probably telling you too much here. Anyway, my point is this: I am clearly regressing. In six months I will be accidentally biting the fork when I eat and dribbling liquid down the front of my shirt when I take a sip from a glass. Because there is no history of dementia in my family, I can only assume this is a result of my deep love affair with drink. Please, please, please, Science, do not tell me I need to start exercising to prevent any further collapse. It would be the absolute final indignity.

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20 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2011/01/goddamit-do-i-have-to-start-working-out/feed 20 Help Me Prevaricate With My Physician http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/help-me-prevaricate-with-my-physician http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/help-me-prevaricate-with-my-physician#comments Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:10:29 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/help-me-prevaricate-with-my-physician (c) InternetA recent study showing that men-particularly those who are "devoted to traditional beliefs about masculinity"-are far less likely to visit the doctor than women or pussy-ass metrosexuals was not exactly a surprise to anyone, but it hit home personally and caused me to reconsider my own longstanding aversion to having a medical professional look me over and tell me to stop doing everything I enjoy and start doing everything that I don't do already because it's boring or might cause me to sweat. I mean, let's be honest: I am not getting any younger, and the damage I've been doing to my body lo these many years is beginning to take its toll. So I bit the bullet and made an appointment.

Fortunately, the guy was booked solid for two months, so I've got the best of both worlds right now: I can tell everyone who keeps hassling me to see a doctor, i.e. my mom, that I have scheduled a check-up, but I don't have to actually do it until November, which is so far in the future I can't even process it! That said, if I should actually survive long enough for the dreaded event, I have a serious question that I am hoping members of the Awl community will be able to answer: What's the current calculus on the percentage of how much you drink and smoke that you reveal to your practitioner? I haven't had a check-up in seven years. Back then I recall the standard acceptable fiction being about a third of actual consumption. Has the ratio changed? I mean, if I'm going through the trouble of attending this thing I'd hate to get my lies wrong. Thanks in advance for all your help!

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]]> (c) InternetA recent study showing that men-particularly those who are "devoted to traditional beliefs about masculinity"-are far less likely to visit the doctor than women or pussy-ass metrosexuals was not exactly a surprise to anyone, but it hit home personally and caused me to reconsider my own longstanding aversion to having a medical professional look me over and tell me to stop doing everything I enjoy and start doing everything that I don't do already because it's boring or might cause me to sweat. I mean, let's be honest: I am not getting any younger, and the damage I've been doing to my body lo these many years is beginning to take its toll. So I bit the bullet and made an appointment.

Fortunately, the guy was booked solid for two months, so I've got the best of both worlds right now: I can tell everyone who keeps hassling me to see a doctor, i.e. my mom, that I have scheduled a check-up, but I don't have to actually do it until November, which is so far in the future I can't even process it! That said, if I should actually survive long enough for the dreaded event, I have a serious question that I am hoping members of the Awl community will be able to answer: What's the current calculus on the percentage of how much you drink and smoke that you reveal to your practitioner? I haven't had a check-up in seven years. Back then I recall the standard acceptable fiction being about a third of actual consumption. Has the ratio changed? I mean, if I'm going through the trouble of attending this thing I'd hate to get my lies wrong. Thanks in advance for all your help!

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85 comments

]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/help-me-prevaricate-with-my-physician/feed 85 My Snoring Is Going To Kill Me? http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/my-snoring-is-going-to-kill-me http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/my-snoring-is-going-to-kill-me#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:45:38 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/08/my-snoring-is-going-to-kill-me Me, in reposeI don't know if it's my advancing years or my expanding waistline, but stories like this one are starting to scare the crap out of me.
Severe nightly episodes of interrupted breathing during sleep – commonly known as sleep apnea – double the risk of death for middle-age men, according to a new study being called the largest ever conducted on the disorder.

Even men with moderate sleep apnea – anywhere from 15 to 30 instances of oxygen deprivation per hour – appear to be 45 percent more likely to die from any cause than those who have no nighttime breathing problems.

I for sure have sleep apnea-I literally lurch forward several times a night gasping for air or choking on drool-but as my typical procedure on health related matters is the time-tested method of ignoring it and hoping it will self-correct, this is more than a little alarming. On the other hand, "It's a chronic exposure... One night's exposure in itself is not a health risk. ... It happens hundreds of times a night and it goes on for decades." Decades? I can probably handle that!

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]]> Me, in reposeI don't know if it's my advancing years or my expanding waistline, but stories like this one are starting to scare the crap out of me.
Severe nightly episodes of interrupted breathing during sleep – commonly known as sleep apnea – double the risk of death for middle-age men, according to a new study being called the largest ever conducted on the disorder.

Even men with moderate sleep apnea – anywhere from 15 to 30 instances of oxygen deprivation per hour – appear to be 45 percent more likely to die from any cause than those who have no nighttime breathing problems.

I for sure have sleep apnea-I literally lurch forward several times a night gasping for air or choking on drool-but as my typical procedure on health related matters is the time-tested method of ignoring it and hoping it will self-correct, this is more than a little alarming. On the other hand, "It's a chronic exposure... One night's exposure in itself is not a health risk. ... It happens hundreds of times a night and it goes on for decades." Decades? I can probably handle that!

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