Follow the science!
That’s kind of been the phrase on everyone’s lips for the last couple of years. The thing is that much of the time, as we’ve seen, people don’t know how to “Follow the science” without injecting a whole bunch of our personal thoughts, feelings, and biases into it.
It’s natural. We’re human, after all. Nothing we can do about that. At least until the Zombie variant hits us sometime later this year.
We won’t need tests to determine positivity with the Zombie variant.
As humans, we’re wired to feel things.
Yes, I’m talking about feeeeelings.
Icky gooey feelings.
And those feeeeeelings tend to get in the way of objective thought and reason. Sometimes those feeeeeelings are true but most of the time those feeeeeelings get in the way. Like when we have to twirl ourselves into a Bimini Twist to justify something said by someone we voted for, instead of acknowledging their obvious hateful incompetence.
Anywordle, I thought I’d bring up a few examples of how we should “Follow The Science,” both in and out of the fitness realm today.
Get your d**n vaccine! I’m not going to say anything else about this other than the science is settled at this point. If you’re following the science and not your feeeeeelings…just come on.
Stop looking at the scale! The science concerning scale weight says this: obsessing over the scale significantly impacts your mental health while not being at all effective in improving your physical health. We have enough studies showing us that almost everyone that loses a significant amount of weight gains it all back, so how ’bout focusing on things that actually make us healthier? Like exercising in a way that focuses on positive change in our body and mind and not the constant moral judgements about what you supposedly shouldn’t eat.
People with healthy habits tend to have better Covid outcomes. If you read number one you know I’m not an anti-vaxx/Vitamin-D-is-all-I-need conspiracy lackey, but it’s no surprise that people that have healthy habits tend to have better outcomes with this thing whether vaccinated or not. Not always, but people with healthier habits tend to have fewer co-morbidities.
Back pain is usually not about your back. In a study some years ago, imaging tests were performed on adults with no back pain. Disc degeneration, bulging discs, and other issues were found in the vast majority of them. What does that mean? Probably that disc degeneration and bulging discs don’t automatically cause back pain. What does? In my experience, some combination of poor posture, poor breathing patterns, and poor movement patterns. In other words, not your back.
Extra money helps babies. Just last week the New York Times reported on a study that showed an increase in brain activity related to cognitive function in babies whose parents had received financial subsidies. While it was a study that needs more follow-up to see how those changes will play out over time, the fact that less financial strain on a baby’s parents had these effects is undeniably powerful and begs for deeper and longer-term work. I’m looking forward to the pro-choice crowd getting behind additional subsidies for low-income parents as a result. Because it’s all about the kids, right?
In any case, I hope what I’ve shown you here is that following the science, while not necessarily easy on our belief systems, is pretty important to operating to our full potential and in a way that promotes real knowledge and growth.
As always, let me know what you think!
Mitch Rothbardt
P.S. Watch out for those Zombies! That variant is gonna be on us, like super fast!!