You Can't Always Blame the Puppy
Self-Sabotage
All those fitness-trainer-guru people talk about the perils of your family ruining your quest for fitness.
I never realized my family was like that until this morning. I was doing push-up sets.
Spoiler: That is definitely not me in that image.
In between sets I sat up because honestly my floor is sooooo dirty it was kind of grossing me out and making my nose all twitchy from the dust. This is when it all went wrong, because the moment I sat up who should appear?
No! Not Santa! But look even Santa is running and getting all health-i-fied now!
It was actually her:
"Pogie, baby," I told her as she settled in and took up ALL my push-up space. "You need to move. I need to build up my upper body strength.
Pogie:
"Honey, could you move? My minute has passed. I need to do my last set."
Pogie:
So, knowing I was defeated, I moved backwards and started my next set. What did she do? She got up too and walked over to me and then showed me her puppy bottom! Okay. She didn't show me. She SHOVED it in my face! And swatted me with a very enthusiastic tail.
Sigh.
I'm going to have to do my push-ups in the bedroom and lock the door from now on.
Pogie: Lock the door? Don't make me laugh! Locks do not stop me! Not with these monster puppy paws. These monster puppy paws can knock down a door. You don't KNOW what these monster puppy paws are capable of.
I only half kid.
We All Might Be Accidentally Hurting Ourselves
That’s right. We don’t need a puppy to mess ourselves up on the daily.
There’s a really interesting and potentially helpful article by Very Well Health about how we all have habits that we don’t realize our ruining our health goals. These are things we do every day.
They are:
Rehashing Stressful Events
Venting to Your Friends
Using Self-Criticism
Mindlessly Scrolling Through Social Media
Staying Up Late
Spending Money
Watching TV
Eating When You’re Not Hungry
Sitting Too Much
Ignoring Skin Health
Some of these were a little bit illuminating for me. I mean, I though rehashing stressful events and venting were good things.
The research they cited says I’m wrong.
They write:
A 2017 study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy found that ruminating (compulsively focusing on one's distress as opposed to figuring out solutions) leads to increased depressive symptoms. The more people thought about a stressful event, the more likely they were to grow depressed. Researchers found that decreasing rumination helped alleviate a depressed mood.
Similarly, venting to your friends? Not always a good idea.
A 2011 study published in the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology found a link between co-rumination (the behavior in which a peer relationship focused on negatively oriented conversations) and depression. Children who tend to rehash their problems with peers were more likely to be diagnosed with depression.2
Of course, venting isn’t just bad for kids. A 2008 study published in Hormones and Behavior found that talking about problems with friends increased stress hormone levels in women.3
This runs counter to everything I’ve ever been taught about how men have issues because they don’t vent and pent up all their emotions inside. So, honestly, I’m going to research that one more. Tell me what you think if you get a chance.
Some of the others make sense like:
Using Self-Criticism - Try to be nice to yourself, obviously.
Mindlessly Scrolling Through Social Media - Makes you feel more isolated.
Staying Up Late - Makes you more likely to make decisions that are bad for your health.
Spending Money - Debt can often lead to high levels of stress.
Watching TV - If you don’t exercise and you watch a bunch of TV when in early adulthood, you often have worse “executive function and processing speed in midlife.” And if it’s three hours a more of watching for 25 years? Your cognitive test scores will be worse compared to people who don’t watch that much.
Eating When You’re Not Hungry - Increases our risk for a ton of health problems.
Sitting Too Much - Is bad for your mental health and physical health. Believe me, I know.
Ignoring Skin Health - Not using SPF increases your risk of skin cancer, kind of a no-brainer there.
Forbes also has an article by Lauren Silva about the WHY of self-sabotage.
It lists these as some of the reasons:
“Low self-esteem
Bad habits, such as excessive and uncontrolled drinking
Cognitive dissonance (having inconsistent or conflicting thoughts)
Fear or discomfort of change
A need to be in control
Contentment with where you are in life
Fear of failure
Familiarity of failure
Social or peer pressure”
And has these as common behaviors. Note none of them include a puppy wagging her tail.
Self-sabotage can have a massive impact on your mood and your life, but there are ways to combat it.
Forbes suggests these:
I don’t know about you, but I know that' I’m going to keep an eye on my tendency for self-criticism and see if any of the above ideas help me out, though I am already the Queen of Lists.
Links to Learn More . . .
Connolly SL, Alloy LB. Rumination interacts with life stress to predict depressive symptoms: An ecological momentary assessment study. Behav Res Ther. 2017;97:86-95. doi:10.1016/j.brat.2017.07.006
Stone LB, Uhrlass DJ, Gibb BE. Co-rumination and lifetime history of depressive disorders in children. J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol. 2010;39(4):597-602. doi:10.1080/15374416.2010.486323
Byrd-craven J, Geary DC, Rose AJ, Ponzi D. Co-ruminating increases stress hormone levels in women. Horm Behav. 2008;53(3):489-92. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2007.12.002
Yamaguchi, A, Kim, MS, Akutsu, S. The effects of self-construals, self-criticism, and self-compassion on depressive symptoms.Personality and Individual Differences, 2014; 8, 65-70. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.03.013
Appel H, Gerlach AL, Crusius J. The interplay between Facebook use, social comparison, envy, and depression. Current Opinion in Psychology, 2016; 9, 44-49. doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.10.006
Hoang TD, Reis J, Zhu N, et al. Effect of Early Adult Patterns of Physical Activity and Television Viewing on Midlife Cognitive Function. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016;73(1):73-9. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.2468
