Health update: exercise, back, spectacles

Last month I had mentioned a surprising lack of ABBA on the BBC Radio playlists that I use these days for working out. Recent ones have included more; I guess it is just random variation. A frequent feature on the playlists has been songs in which Nile Rodgers was somehow involved. I saw him at Edinburgh Airport a few years ago. More recently, my mother saw Jermaine Jackson at the airport, maybe Manchester; the playlist I used this morning included one of his songs.

This morning's workout was one of my worst yet. I had previously been slowing down somewhat after failing to average twenty-five of the cross-trainer's calories per minute. This morning I felt like I worked reasonably hard yet barely scraped beyond an average of twenty. I do hope that trying to make my workouts more infrequent and pleasant does not imply inexorable decline: I had hoped to stabilize around my current level but maybe not. It is not as if I take them easy: I still sweat and after this morning's my legs ache a little.

My new mattress is not yet obviously helping my back: it is still sore when I get up in the morning though is better an hour or two later. Still, I suspect I should give myself at least a fortnight to become more used to it before passing judgement^*. gerald_duck encouraged me to think beyond memory foam but sleeping separately and having a tight budget I risked open-coil; I am at least enjoying being able to shift position without having to lift my body off the bed. People suggest that improving my core strength would help but given that my back is bad only after I have slept, when presumably I was relaxed, I do not see the relevance of the condition of my muscles.

I enjoy my reading glasses. I am still not sure when I need them, at least beyond reading tiny writing up close. For my laptop computer screens sometimes I wear them, sometimes not. Maybe I am still getting used to them or perhaps it just depends on how tired I am.

^*The manufacturer warns that it takes several weeks for the firmness to settle.

Feelings about organ donation

Organ donation has been in the UK news lately: default opt-in or opt-out, overrides by next of kin, consent in general. The question of encouraging people to donate fits nicely with the concurrent news of Richard Thaler's Nobel Prize. One thing that puzzles me is my instinct not to donate: when I have strong a priori wishes about my own body that seem irrational then typically I find that they are easily explained by a naive consideration of evolutionary psychology.

( Opting in to organ donation clearly seems the right thing to do. )

I am thus surprised to find how much I want my cadaver to remain unmolested, that choosing to donate is an effort of will. ( A cadaver really does not seem the same if missing components. )

( Perhaps my issue is something to do with family versus strangers. )

( Loans rather than grants seem an unlikely compromise. )