Hurtler’s disease

Over the school holidays we had a wonderful holiday in Perth, marred only by the way I hurtled past the couch in our rented apartment on the Friday and completely failed to miss, breaking my toe. Limping back to work somewhat sheepishly, I tried to pass it off as “Spontaneous Acute Proprioceptive Dysfunction”, but most people have immediately spotted that this just means I’m clumsy.

I thought that was all there was to it, until a friend was telling me via email the other day how he spent Sunday hiking with his son and a friend, instead of working. He said he’d had a fun day, but it “wasn’t very productive”. I dashed off a response commenting that peace and wellbeing were products in themselves and moved on, but the idea started to bubble in the back of my mind.

Companies are all about productivity these days. Union claims for pay rises are always met with demands for associated productivity increases – which is usually code for increased workloads.

In our personal lives, we feel productive when we achieve lots of tangible stuff. Ticking things off todo lists, tackling the paperwork, shrinking the looming inbox wall of guilt (or is that just me?). Things that we can easily count.

There’s panic on the switchboard tongues are ties in knots
Some come out in sympathy some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
And everybody knows it’s the Industrial Disease

Mark Knopfler, Industrial Disease

But I’m starting to realise two things. The first is that the most productive things in our lives are probably not countable, tickable, or easily measured in any way. Love, rest, calm, emotional connectedness, wellbeing. ‘Little’ things that are the foundation of our lives.

The second is that I am vastly more productive at work when I make sure I have plenty of those unmeasurable things. Even if you measure productivity solely by measurable KPIs, it’s still crucial to focus on those unmeasurable, intangible things in order to increase (and improve!) those measurable, tangible outcomes.

On the weekend we went down to Sorrento. Usually when we do that we drive straight there, following our habitual technique of focusing solely on the outcome. But we had no deadline, no time we absolutely had to be there, so on a whim we stopped at a cafe on the way down. When we got to Sorrento we were vastly less tired, rushed, and grumpy than usual, even though we got stuck in heavy long-weekend traffic after our cafe stop. We made some space both in our drive and in our heads, and as a result we had a much better day.

My broken toe is a direct result of hurtler’s disease. Dashing about leads (for me, at least) to bumping into things. I was on holiday, yet I was automatically rushing because that’s just what I do these days. I rush. I work to deadlines. I check the clock. I stress.  I find it really hard to kick that habit, even when it’s wholly unnecessary. My default response to requests for “extras” like cafe stops, park visits, trips to the pool, or even games at home is “We don’t have time” or “I’m too busy”. And the sad part is that I have written about this very problem before, last time I broke a toe!

But the truth is we do have time. I’m not too busy. I just need to recognise that being productive sometimes means I need to stop. To slow down. To make space. That may be the most productive I will ever be.

Feeling Springy

I love September. When I was sixteen my sister and her boyfriend gave me armloads of daffodils and jonquils for my birthday, and for a week or two my bedroom was a a festival of Spring colour and fragrance. I felt very special. When the sun comes back after a long, grey winter, when the air warms and the wattles turn the world yellow I always feel that way again, whatever else is going on in my life.

Spring feels like a burst of hope, in an explosion of warmth, colour, and intense perfume. Sunday’s low temperature was higher than many of the preceding week’s highs. It may well be warmer than most of next week too, as the winter is threatening to return for one last (I hope!) frozen hurrah.

This year my Spring is at least as much internal as external. Though the sunshine has been unusually delayed, the spring has returned to my step ahead of schedule, and it’s all down to my new best friend – my CPAP machine.

For those who have never encountered it, CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Air Pressure. Every night I do a Darth Vader impersonation and attach a hose to my nose via a soft silicone mask, and my beloved machine forces air into my lungs all night.

This may sound like a horrible, traumatic thing, but in actual fact it has been the most extraordinary revelation. Because it turns out I used to stop breathing in my sleep. Not a lot – my apnoea score is a meagre 7, meaning I stopped breathing just 7 times per hour.  But in between those 7 strange pauses my breathing was interrupted just enough to wake me up. This happened so often that I never actually went into deep sleep. I snored. I tossed and turned. And I woke every morning feeling as though I had been running a marathon in my sleep.

The impact of this was surprisingly extreme. My health was plummeting. I was becoming more and more depressed. I was struggling on just about every front, and as my desperation increased, so too did my despair. And then came CPAP. And over the course of about two months I experimented with different machines and different settings and finally found my way into deep sleep at long last. It took time. The first machine was noisy and the mask uncomfortable. It took time to find the right mask, the right air pressure, and just to get used to the whole setup. But even as I fiddled with the settings, things started to change.

I found myself singing as I rode to and from work. I found myself joining my kids on the trampoline from time to time. I started to bounce. And play. And feel.

It’s like staring at a black and white photo and finding it suddenly transforming into an immersive 3D interactive experience in vibrant colour.

It’s like being blind for years and suddenly being able to see.

It’s like spending half your life deaf and hearing a symphony for the first time.

It’s like going to sleep in the darkest of Arctic winters and waking on a tropical beach.

It’s like dying and being reborn, but without having to go through teething or puberty again.

It’s like watching a flower grow from seed to bloom in a matter of moments, right inside your own head.

Today I’m tired. I had a huge day yesterday, and a late night blissfully immersed in the kind of conversation that extends for hours beyond the first tentative “I should be going”. I woke at 5:30am and couldn’t get back to sleep because my head was buzzing with plans and ideas. I should be completely wrecked. But I’m just normally tired. And tonight I will sleep. Those words are beyond miraculous to me. I will sleep. And I will most likely wake feeling rested. From there, absolutely anything is possible.

I’m 44 today. My kids think that’s extraordinarily old. I’m told it’s all downhill from 40. I should, apparently, be feeling old and creaky and disheartened. Instead I have my life back. I feel brighter, more energetic, and younger than I’ve felt in years. CPAP is a daunting prospect, and it certainly takes some getting used to, but it has given me a whole new life.