For the most part it will come down to the increased contact in smaller environments due to the cold. But with children I'm wanting to believe there is more I can do to avoid a repeat of last year's constant sickness at home.

Would love to hear people's thoughts and ideas.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

Looking to get a new chair; something better than my previous chair which was some Chinese product I got off Amazon that I thought might be pretty good, but ended up breaking in less than two years. I've experienced pain problems from chairs, in the legs, and the elbows (from arm rests). Avoiding those problems will be a must from my new chair.

Update: I made a purchase. Details in this comment.

I would take recommendations for either a specific model, or just a brand/manufacturer. Would love to hear stories from people, especially as it relates to sturdiness and longevity.

Desired qualities:

• Around 200-250 USD, but there's wiggle room here. (Update: I'm strongly considering bumping this price range up. It occurred to me: I will be in this thing for longer per day than I am in my bed, and I didn't skimp on my bed.)
• Good ergonomics; good for posture, health; not lead to sitting-related pains, etc.
• good for use 10+ hours a day
• very comfortable seat cushion (not hard, nothing digging into thighs, etc.)
• wheels / casters
• something that would last 3+ years
• 2+ year warranty
• adjustability of at least the seat elevation

Nice to have:

• liftable or removable armrests, because these tend to just hit my desk or other things
• 3+ year warranty
• lots of adjustability, to be able to zero in on the perfect fit for me
• wheels / casters good for carpet, too

So far, I've read good things about the Branch brand, but the model I'm eyeing (the "Branch Ergonomic Chair") is a bit out of my price range (though I've been talking myself into it).

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

I signed up for a class from Udemy. Udemy makes tech classes you take at your own pace. The lessons are many short videos with lectures and some practical exercises.

I signed up for a class that will prepare me to take a certification class for a skill that will help my resume. Complete worth it.

I am about 2/3 done.

The thing is I've getting frustrated and mentally run down.

The course is voluminous. The going is slow.

I know the thing to do is to forget about finishing, forget about the results, and just focus on enjoying each lesson in the hear and now.

I enjoy taking notes, I am good at it, and I find reviewing notes to be soothing/meditative.

I still get frustrated and demoralized.

Worse, I always thought if I got a lot of time to learn something I would sit down at it 8 hours a day and blow it away. I get wiped out at about 3-4 hours. I'm kicking myself for this which isn't helping.

Any advice, commiseration, or success stories?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

I have Bipolar I with minor psychosis, CPTSD and OCD. I was born into an emotionally abusive family, and they are the only people i know, because i am also chronically alone and have dealt with feelings of loneliness on some level since i was a young kid. I had some online friends who helped me a lot with mental health issues but i lost access to them. The main reason im suicidal is because i feel like i have really bad luck. No matter what i do it ends up amounting to nothing. Everytime i start having hope i lose it because something bad happens to me again.
I hear about mental illness and people having a successful life despite it and despite feeling hopeless, but i just dont see that its possible to ever have a life worth living.
I really hope there are other people who relate, or maybe people who used to be that hopeless but ended up living a good life.

Author's note: I'm mostly typing this up for myself as a writing exercise to sum up my situation, so that I can present it to a doctor one day if I can find one who will listen. It's a long read, and I don't expect anyone to seriously read it? But, if you happen to make it through and have any advice, or recommendations for specialists I could seek out, I would really appreciate that.

I work remotely as an open source maintainer for a university research lab, so I spend a lot of time at my computer. Throughout my adult life, I've found that I work best when sitting in my bed with my laptop. Yet, I figure sitting in my bed isn't the best for my body, so I've tried hard over the years to make a desk setup that's as accommodating as possible:

• I have a big corner desk with lots of tabletop space and overhead cabinets.
• I've set up cozy under-cabinet 2700K LED strip lightning.
• I've decorated the space with nice sentimental things.
• I've got a foot-warmer under the desk (since I have chronic ice-cold feet for reasons I don't yet understand).
• I own a (secondhand) Steelcase Leap v1 that I've meticulously adjusted to my body, making sure all of the heights and distances are within typical ergonomic recommendations.
• I have an ergonomic keyboard with a sliding under-desk tray
• I've gotten dual monitors, with one being a modern 1024*1280 monitor to avoid whiplash from an extra-wide double-1080p monitor setup.

Despite all of the above, every time I go to use my setup, I feel a big sense of revulsion and a big urge to just curl up in bed with my laptop.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about why I react this way, and I attribute it to a whole bunch of underlying factors:

1. I'm autistic+anxious (ASD/GAD diagnoses), and I was previously diagnosed with ADHD, too.
2. I struggle a lot with pain/physical discomfort:
   • One of my brain quirks is that I have big sensory sensitivities surrounding my body. I'm hyperaware of any uncomfortable sensations in my body, and pain/discomfort can completely derail my ability to focus and be present in the moment. For example, if I eat too much and feel overfull, the sensation of my stomach pressing against my other internal organs drives me crazy, to the point where I can hardly even watch a show or listen to music. The same goes for when I'm constipated or have an upset stomach. When I get like this, it's like I can't feel any emotions. The discomfort/pain are the only physical sensations I can take in, because they crowd everything else out. I can't feel warmth or happiness or fullness in my heart. All I feel is discomfort.
   • My anxiety results in a near-constant state of tension. I'm often very aware of the booming of my heartbeat, or tightness in my chest. I fall into a negative feedback loop, as it makes it very difficult to relax, which further triggers anxiety and tension. (Side note: Beta blockers are the most effective anti-anxiety medications I've ever been prescribed for exactly this reason. They target the physical sensations, and helped me feel an overall sense of calm. I haven't been prescribed them in 7+ years, though, because every new GP/psych I visit automatically discounts them as off-label/not-first-line approaches, even though I've had direct success with them when other approaches have failed. I wish doctors would listen to me. Would weed help?)
   • When I get anxious/depressed, I find that my posture suffers a lot. My body sort of curls in on itself, as though it were attempting the fetal position. It takes an exceedingly difficult amount of effort to preserve good posture the more fatigued I get. But, in such a state, I don't have the spoons to exert this effort -- it gets harder and harder until I inevitably curl up in bed.
   • Wouldn't you know it, I have chronic pain, too. Multiple times a week, it manifests as this combo of upper-back/shoulder/neck/sinus/behind-the-eyes pain. It typically happens only on one side of my body (though which side it happens on is not consistent). The sinus pain is curious, too: I regularly have a "cold nose" (similar to my cold feet), and breathing in feels icy and sharp, with a tingle like I'm about to sneeze. I find myself reflexively picking or prodding at my nose just to distract from the painful sensations. I often cover my nose with my shirt so that I can breathe in my warm, moist, exhaled breath. It doesn't really warm up my nose, but it provides some in the moment relief.
   • You can imagine what this chronic pain does to my ability to feel emotions or focus on tasks... I rely a LOT on Aleve. ;;
   • I'm also sensitive to temperature: I really dislike being too cold or too hot. I often change clothes multiple times a day, from shirts to sweaters and back + shorts to sweatpants and back, because I'm constantly adjusting my temperature.
   • I also am particular about pressure and textures on my skin. I don't really like having my skin exposed? I like big comfy sweaters and a specific kind of sweatpants that Uniqlo used to sell. I also really adore this specific duvet I got from IKEA, because it's big and fluffy and weighty. It's like a semi-weighted blanket without being so densely concentrated (I have a glass bead weighted blanket I hardly use because of how icky it feels).
   • Because of all of this, my ideal state of being is one where my body just kind of... disappears from my consciousness? I strongly wish I could exist without being aware of my physical form, because I'd say at least 90% of my waking hours I'm feeling some form of discomfort or another, and thus 90% of the time any happiness is blocked by the discomfort.
3. As far as working on a computer, I find that I'm most productive when I can sink into a state of hyperfocus/flow and attack a task for hours at a time in a single sitting. I'll lose track of time, come out of the state wondering where the day went, yet be insanely productive during that period.
   • Naturally, this goes against conventional advice for computer-based WFH, since in this state I don't take stretching breaks, don't adjust my posture, don't rest my eyes, etc. But, I find forced breaks tend to rip me out of my focus, and it takes a lot of self-regulation/spoons to get back on track after a break.
   • Despite the terrible ergonomics of hyperfocus, it counterintuitively acts as a needed respite from the pain/discomfort. Being hyperfocused is one of the only states that supersedes the sensory sensitivity I have. I'll often be so focused that I don't notice the state my body is in, which is pretty much my ideal! (Side note: Because of this dynamic, I often lean on rhythm video games as a respite for pain, too. They're easy for me to hyperfocus on, which makes passing the time a lot more bearable for me when I'm in pain.)
4. And, the environment most conducive for sparking a state of hyperfocus is my bed, rather than a desk.
   • Even with all my adjustments, my desk feels very finicky and dynamic. The chair rolls, the keyboard tray slides, the chair back reclines, my foot warmer slides around. Rarely do I feel anchored, and rarely does everything feel "just right". I can't really find a "locked in" position for hyperfocus, as my body is always interacting with its environment via subtle little tics and adjustments.
   • I also find that sitting at a desk leaves me feeling rather exposed? Even with clothes on, I just... don't have enough weight on my legs to feel fully comfortable.
   • When I do try to sit at a desk, I may be somewhat comfortable at first, but as time goes on I get more and more uncomfortable. Maybe a tricky task temporarily spikes my anxiety, which causes tension and pain, which makes me focus on the pain, which makes it harder to think clearly about the task at hand, which makes me more anxious, which begins to affect my posture, which makes it harder to properly sit in my ergonomic chair. I'll fidget and shift, and start to lean on one arm. It often escalates to the point where it feels like torture to hold my own body up, because I feel like a ragdoll in my chair.
   • My bed, by comparison, doesn't ask any effort of me at all. I'm fully enveloped by the mattress and my pillows, so if I end up in "ragdoll anxiety/depression" mode, I'm supported in exactly the same way I would be if I was in "full spoons" mode. I also get the comfort of my duvet, with fluffy warmth and weight on every part of my body, and very little of me being exposed.
   • This means that I can somewhat ignore my body when I'm in my bed. Even if I'm in pain, even if I'm anxious, I don't really have to... DO anything about it? I don't have to physically move my body in a specific way in order to keep hacking away at a task. The pain will still be there, but the hyperfocus state can win out, and I can work away while feeling like my laptop is an extension of my body.

Surely this isn't good for me, right? Surely I should be attacking the root of the problem so that I don't devolve into a ragdoll mess of pain every time I try and use a desk? Surely lying in bed for hours at a time isn't good for my body, right? But, with this multi-layered set of factors, with many of them being inherent anxious/autistic traits, I don't know how to create an environment that's any better for me than my bed is.

What do?

by Wes Davis

A key cold medicine ingredient is basically worthless

The FDA’s 16-member advisory panel unanimously voted yesterday that oral phenylephrine, a common active ingredient in cold medications, is no better than a placebo for treating congestion.

Link to the article

The call by the panel sets up potential FDA action that could force the removal of certain over-the-counter medications containing the ingredient — including certain formulations of Mucinex, Sudafed, Tylenol, and NyQuil — from store shelves.
But FDA may hold off for many months, pending contested findings by drug makers and other considerations.

Data

Newer data from studies the panel says are more consistent with modern clinical trial standards showed phenylephrine simply “was not significantly different from placebo” in the recommended dosage, including trials from 2007 that the FDA had reviewed when considering the drug after a citizen petition prompted it to do so.

Bioavailability

The panel cited the drug’s low bioavailability, a term referring to qualities that allow the drug to be absorbed by the human body, as the main reason the drug should be removed from the market.

Jennifer Schwartzott said the drug “should have been removed from the market a long time ago,” while Dr. Stephen Clement said that although the drug itself isn’t dangerous, its usage by patients should be considered unsafe because it potentially delays actual treatment of disease symptoms.

Alternative

The panel cited pseudoephedrine as an effective alternative though while it’s technically available without a prescription, you must talk to a pharmacist to get it because, in large quantities, it can be used to make methamphetamines.

I'm trying to find the root cause of my declining mental health. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe my brain is just physically broken and I have to deal with it.
But what I tend to think of recently is the concept of belongingness.
I rarely feel I have a sense of belonging anywhere. And my theory is that the constant otherness is what is causing the degradation.

So what i want to is, for those who experience frequent depressive cycles -- do you have a sense of belonging? Or do you too feel constantly othered?

(I hope this makes sense haha)