Sh*ts & Giggles
My Self-Care Binge
Humor columnist Liz McDaniel shares five things she learned on a month-long wellness binge.
- Written By
- Liz McDaniel
I should start by saying that wellness is not my forte. I tend to take the French girl approach to chocolate croissants and exercise which is, of course, eat a lot of them and walk at a swift pace while doing so. But as I approach the end of my thirties, there is a sense, okay, a crippling fear, that everything I have ever put in my body— every sour patch kid, every bistro burger, every big bodied red— is bound to wreak havoc on my health and my face any second. (A lot of it, my crow's feet would argue, already has.) But vanity has never been reason enough to get it together. It’s more about that part of the equation that in the age of face masks and fashion leggings with mesh panels (when, please, will they stop with the mesh panels?!) often goes overlooked. It’s something I’ve only considered since becoming a mother. Which is, of course, that I actually want to be well. I want to live as long as humanly possible and I want the quality of that life to be higher than what one might achieve with the occasional swift walk while eating a chocolate croissant.
Thus began my month-long foray into what can be loosely described as self-care but what also might be best understood in the context of the Hippocratic Oath: “First do no harm.” I tried to get more sleep, consume less sugar, eat more vegetables. I had a (mostly) Dry January. I exercised. I drank green tea. I read the closest thing to a self-help book that I was willing to read. (“Maybe You Should Talk To Someone,” by Lori Gottlieb and it will make you laugh and cry.) I indulged in chair massages and face masks, but I also went to the doctor and had blood work done. Novel idea, isn’t it?
A few sore muscles and a respectable amount of arugula later, here are five things I learned from my month-long wellness binge:
Dry January Is A Revelation
Full disclosure I did not start until January 5 and I had a glass of wine with friends a week before the finish line, and still I was shocked by the ripple effect of the simple act of eliminating alcohol. I read more books. I got better sleep. I found myself exercising early in the morning on the weekends (what?!). My mind felt lighter, more clear. I stopped needing that 3pm cup of coffee. While purported benefits like glowing, dewy skin and a zen-like calm under pressure never came, I can see what the whole sober curious thing is about.
Hyaluronic Acid Is Also A Revelation
Maybe this is not important in the grand scheme of things, but there is a reason people are basically bathing in the stuff. I only used the cheap drug store mask version and the results were palpable. Maybe the lesson here is that everyone should keep drinking and invest heavily in one of those pure hyaluronic acid serums.
You’re Probably Overthinking It
The doctor I saw for a check-up and blood work broke it down like this: Sleep. Stress. Diet. Exercise. Those are the four main things and really, she said, it’s about the first two. If you can get good sleep and learn to manage stress, you’ll go a long way toward improving your health. Something about this made it all seem less overwhelming to me. Even if those things are virtually impossible in the first five years of a child’s life, it still felt like a glimmer of hope.
Beware the Jumping Jack
For the exercise part of the program, I returned to The Class by Taryn Toomey which I had only previously attempted in the irrational days leading up to my wedding. If you’re not familiar, The Class is a self-described “transformative workout of body and mind,” or as I like to call it, fancy aerobics. But five years and two babies later, the challenge was...slightly different. If you need a friendly reminder to devote your commute to kegels, may I suggest donning spandex and performing multiple sets of jumping jacks in a room full of twenty-somethings.
Pay Attention to The Stories You Tell Yourself
As the therapist Lori Gottlieb writes in the aforementioned “Maybe You Should Talk To Someone,” “Part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.” (This was also a theme of The Class where, mid-burpie, you might be asked to tell yourself a different story than, say, I am going to collapse right here and I really did not want to die wearing athleisure.) Another example that comes to mind: Wellness is not my forte. Maybe if I let go of that notion it could be.
Thus began my month-long foray into what can be loosely described as self-care but what also might be best understood in the context of the Hippocratic Oath: “First do no harm.” I tried to get more sleep, consume less sugar, eat more vegetables. I had a (mostly) Dry January. I exercised. I drank green tea. I read the closest thing to a self-help book that I was willing to read. (“Maybe You Should Talk To Someone,” by Lori Gottlieb and it will make you laugh and cry.) I indulged in chair massages and face masks, but I also went to the doctor and had blood work done. Novel idea, isn’t it?
A few sore muscles and a respectable amount of arugula later, here are five things I learned from my month-long wellness binge:
Dry January Is A Revelation
Full disclosure I did not start until January 5 and I had a glass of wine with friends a week before the finish line, and still I was shocked by the ripple effect of the simple act of eliminating alcohol. I read more books. I got better sleep. I found myself exercising early in the morning on the weekends (what?!). My mind felt lighter, more clear. I stopped needing that 3pm cup of coffee. While purported benefits like glowing, dewy skin and a zen-like calm under pressure never came, I can see what the whole sober curious thing is about.
Hyaluronic Acid Is Also A Revelation
Maybe this is not important in the grand scheme of things, but there is a reason people are basically bathing in the stuff. I only used the cheap drug store mask version and the results were palpable. Maybe the lesson here is that everyone should keep drinking and invest heavily in one of those pure hyaluronic acid serums.
You’re Probably Overthinking It
The doctor I saw for a check-up and blood work broke it down like this: Sleep. Stress. Diet. Exercise. Those are the four main things and really, she said, it’s about the first two. If you can get good sleep and learn to manage stress, you’ll go a long way toward improving your health. Something about this made it all seem less overwhelming to me. Even if those things are virtually impossible in the first five years of a child’s life, it still felt like a glimmer of hope.
Beware the Jumping Jack
For the exercise part of the program, I returned to The Class by Taryn Toomey which I had only previously attempted in the irrational days leading up to my wedding. If you’re not familiar, The Class is a self-described “transformative workout of body and mind,” or as I like to call it, fancy aerobics. But five years and two babies later, the challenge was...slightly different. If you need a friendly reminder to devote your commute to kegels, may I suggest donning spandex and performing multiple sets of jumping jacks in a room full of twenty-somethings.
Pay Attention to The Stories You Tell Yourself
As the therapist Lori Gottlieb writes in the aforementioned “Maybe You Should Talk To Someone,” “Part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.” (This was also a theme of The Class where, mid-burpie, you might be asked to tell yourself a different story than, say, I am going to collapse right here and I really did not want to die wearing athleisure.) Another example that comes to mind: Wellness is not my forte. Maybe if I let go of that notion it could be.