Cardio as Therapy

This is the first time I've had any desire to write in weeks. I'm not thinking great today, but my motivation is sincere, so I going to cobble this post together from a few half-formed drafts and whatever run-on profundities my brain can be bothered to muster.

I've increased my exercise again and now I'm jogging! Jogging! It's a gentle jog, and it's mostly in place while my dogs sniff and poop, but I keep it up on the level bits of my hike and I'm already feeling results. My head now only rarely bothers me while I'm exercising, and the letdown I experience afterwards has decreased a little. My blood pressure at my last doctor's appointment was the lowest it's ever been: 100/60, I'm sleeping better, my back doesn't hurt hardly at all, and my mood is much more stable. In fact, when I feel myself getting fired up about something, I might just go for a quick, hard hike. Exercise really takes the edge off misplaced emotions and and the risk of migrainous consequences is much less than it is for the average outburst. Emotional stress remains a trigger I struggle to tame, but exercise helps.

I really can't believe I'm jogging. It's been what, two years? since I started hiking these hills, and I've had health issues that have set me back months in progress, but actually seeing slow and steady changes is so encouraging and makes me feel so proud of myself and so lucky that I've been able to live somewhere quiet enough to let me heal my body. My neurological system may still be screwy, but my heart, my skin, my bowels, and my joints are like the parts of another person, the change is tremendous.

Also, I've been feeling fatigued/depressed despite my iron levels having returned to normal, but when I was tested they found that my D levels were low again, so I've been prescribed a daily supplement to get back on track.

It seems like a contradiction that I have the energy to jog yet feel fatigued in daily activities, but it's not a physical kind of fatigued, I feel tired of life. Apathetic, bored, tired of trying. I think working out so hard, nearly every day, has kept me from going over the ledge into despair, though. I think this apathy is a low-level version of the intense depression I've been feeling at the end of my periods, and if that's the case, I'll take it. I still washed my hair, I fed myself well, and took care of the dogs. I didn't get any surveys done, nor make any real effort in any of my relationships, and was probably a little too salty with more than one person I care about, but I didn't feel like killing myself, so am I complaining? Nah.

I can't think of a snappy way to end this, so



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