Fighting Atrophy

Welcome to The Uppercase Life, where we're learning to identify where the highest value lies. I'm your host, Joseph Brewster. 

So I was recently reading an article about astronauts in space, and I found this fact really intriguing. So living and working in space is really mentally strenuous for an astronaut, as you can imagine, all kinds of things that are very unlike living on the Earth.
But the absence of gravity actually makes working in a spacecraft very physically undemanding. So even though you're thinking hard, you've got this high stress job, you really don't have to use your body that much because you're not dealing with gravity. So gravity isn't pushing against your muscles. And they were saying that based on studies they've done with astronauts, if they don't regularly exercise in space, they lose muscle mass at a very high rate.
So the studies were showing that astronauts were experiencing up to 20% loss of muscle just over the course of like a five to ten day space flight. So around a week and they were losing 20% of muscle mass in their bodies because they just weren't experiencing that pressure of gravity and they weren't working out. So if you're listening to this, it's likely that you have a mentally demanding role.
You know, maybe there are areas of your life that you would consider really important to you. You want to be able to use them later like an astronaut would want to be able to return to Earth and be able to walk around without falling over and having, you know, proper muscle mass when they get back. But if you're going to do that, you're going to have to maintain it.
And I was thinking as I was reading this, what is an area of my life that is atrophying that I'm allowing to decrease in mass or in strength because I'm not using it or working it out. And, you know, sometimes we build a skill and then we find seasons in our life where we're not using it and we still identify with that skill.
We consider it vital to our self, our person, but we really don't invest any time into it. So my question to you is, what is something you feel is atrophying in your life? How can you institute small and consistent exercises for skills you want to retain? So here's a good example for me. I grew up drawing. I love art.
I never wanted to be a professional artist as a kid because I didn't think artists made money. And I honestly didn't want anyone to tell me what to draw But as I got older, I was involved in leading organizations. I worked in nonprofits for ten years. They didn't need me to draw anything. Art was not at all a part of my regular work schedule.
But at the same time, it was really important to me. It was vital to who I felt like I identified as. And so I made an effort over those years to find ways to continue to keep those muscles, if you will, moving in myself. That art I continued to produce So I would spend a little bit of time at night or during my breaks during the day, drawing, sketching, writing, engaging in that creative side of me so that I could keep those muscles limber.
I didn't know if I would ever use them, but I knew I didn't want to lose them. And, you know, what ended up happening is after I finished that decade, in nonprofits, I ended up being a designer and I ended up using those skills all the time. And the only reason I could do that is because over the period of time, I was not needing them, I continued to exercise and to practice them.
So what if you dedicated 15 minutes a day to improving and retaining one's skill, which is really important to you? Just 15 minutes a day. I mean, I think you could probably do it with even less. But I would challenge you for 15 because I feel like 15 is good, a good number. But you could probably do 5 minutes a day and it's still better than nothing.
But what is something that you could invest 15 minutes a day in to improve and retain so that you don't lose that? Because you're going to want it in the future. You've probably heard the saying the grass is always greener on the other side. And in a very young age, I remember hearing push back on that and somebody saying, Well, the grass is always greener where you water it.
And I love that. I don't know who coined that comeback, but I feel like that's a classic comeback. Yeah, the grass is greener where you water it. So you're on your side feeling like, Well, I'm not good at this or I'm not good at that, but look at that person over there and how great they're doing. And I think, well, yeah, but that person's watering their grass.
That person's exercising their muscles. Of course, they have bigger muscles than you. You don't work out. Or of course they have greener grass than you. What is your muscle? Where is your line that you should be watering? Make sure you're taking care of that. Don't allow important things to atrophy just because you might be in a season in your life right now.
That doesn't necessarily require them. Just because no one's asking you to do it doesn't mean it's not something you really should do. 15 minutes a day what could you do with 15 minutes a day? I'd love to hear your comments, your criticisms, your feedback. I'd love to hear what it is in your life right now that you feel like maybe atrophying because you haven't needed it, maybe for the job that you're doing or the phase of life that you're in.
But it's something you really care about and you love. How are you going to maintain that? How are you going to encourage that skill within yourself? What's your plan? Send me your comments, criticisms, critiques. I'd love to hear anything you have to say. You can get a hold of me at [email protected], and I'll see you next.