bread can make you tired
Fasting isn’t just for religious purposes or for preparing for surgery…actually, we do it every night! Our first meal of the morning is called, “Breakfast” because we’re breaking the “FAST” that was taking place due to sleep. While one is truly sleeping, he or she cannot eat or drink (unless he’s getting some sort of intravenous solution in a hospital) and that sleep allows our cells to do work on our bodies without having to compensate for movement, and the ingestion of new fluids, solids and/or toxins. So while we sleep, we’re letting our little cellular workers get their duties done without giving them extra work to do.
The reason why fasting is related to the concept of “I need to get my work done FAST today” is quite interesting.
Have you ever been very full and you already ate a gigantic meal and then someone like your parents or maybe a friend says, “Hurry up! Dinner’s ready! Come downstairs and let’s eat,” but for some reason…you don’t walk very quickly down the stairs? You might blob down the stairs with a sad face because you were busy talking to a friend. Or maybe you don’t come downstairs on time and upset everyone who is waiting on you for dinner.
Now let’s take a different look at the situation with different variables. Let’s say this time, you actually had to skip a meal earlier in the day due to some important event like a piano recital…or maybe you didn’t have time to eat because a colleague needed advice on a big presentation of which subject matter you were an expert. So this time when your loved ones say dinner is ready, what speed do you get downstairs? “FAST” right? It’s as if you don’t even walk downstairs, you somehow bent space and time to the will of your stomach!
Well, fasting is very interesting and can be equally dangerous. Fasting too often can cause people to become weak, fain and also acquire nervous disorders. But the reason why fasting is part of so many religions and cultures around the world for at least 1 day per year…is because it can make one rethink their mind/body relationship and how it relates to their dietary behaviors.
Just today, I was feeling very strange and lethargic. I rarely feel lethargic at all and I was quite confused. This was especially disconcerting because I have a huge demo project which is due in a week. And although I could probably discuss with my friend how I might need more time, I don’t want to. Because this project is going to be a showcase of my programming work and progress over the last couple months. (stay tuned because I’m going to post the project on this site in a week if all goes well.)
So I couldn’t grind very easily on my programming and I was wondering why. So I retraced my food intake over the past couple days and I realized that I had eaten a tremendous amount of pastas, pizzas and chow mein type foods. All these foods are very starchy and are high in carbohydrates. In other words…these foods are part of the bread family.
The only way to confront this bread lethargy is the hard way. I had to take a dreaded…nap.
While I slept in this non-productive torpor of the mind, I found my thoughts drifting. I couldn’t pinpoint any dreams or any real emotions. The thoughts just bubbled around like pasta in boiling water. Until finally, I woke up a couple hours later but didn’t have the energy to work just yet. So I just relaxed for a bit. And while I relaxed, my mind began working on my programming project! It was so weird! I’m just lying there, trying to NOT think, and then out of nowhere, “IF (inventory.visible == True ) && (Keyboard…” Basically, my project was being coded by my subconscious or perhaps my pseudo-consciousness. I’m not really sure, what matters was that after not eating for a while and getting some sleep, I was able to both get my energy back and also solve a major problem I was having with my character’s inventory and the idea of making keyboard presses correlate to movement on the inventory screen, as opposed to movement of the character in the cave area.
One good way of dealing with lethargy and sloth is to get to know what your desired energy levels are. I prefer having a lot of energy so I like things like coffee and high-fiber vegetables like celery and carrots, as well as other items like meats and tons of other stuff. But you might have a desired energy level which may be vegetarian or vegan or perhaps you’re a big fish eater. It could be anything. Everyone’s body is unique and his or her’s goals and responsibilities can directly be affected by having a comfortable energy level in order to getting the work done right.
So have fun and enjoy life!
-Tyler