Taking the Plunge

Doesn’t the path to obsession always begin with one small seemingly innocent step?

That’s how it was with me at least. It didn’t feel like a big deal. A lot of people were doing it. At home. At the office. Why shouldn’t I?

So I pulled the trigger. I bought a stand-up desk. You know, the kind that slowly rises and lowers at the push of a button. Then I got another for work. Yep, I’m one of those guys now. The annoying dude in his office with his shoes off smugly cranking out emails foot perched on knee in yogic tree pose.

Somewhere I’d heard “sitting is the new smoking,” and I knew I couldn’t fool myself anymore. I’m solidly middle-aged. I needed to start taking better care of myself. Thus began a now-year-long, single-minded crusade to stave off the ravages of age by any means necessary, no matter how goofy, to improve my mental and physical health.

To my stand-up desk at home, I soon added a special chair (imagine a stationary bike minus the handlebars), so I could peddle while drafting emails, while writing columns for a certain area magazine, or even during Zoom meetings. Sure, I’m soaked with sweat and so winded I can barely talk on these calls, but I figure I’ll get the last laugh when I outlive everyone else on the screen.

Next, I made a rash birthday resolution to take a year off drinking. I’d heard on a podcast that the latest peer-reviewed scientific studies show that even one drink per day has deleterious health efects. As someone who’d become a devoted connoisseur of hazy IPAs (especially during COVID), I was shocked at how easily I gave them up. Sure, there were nights when I felt the old urge to wind down with one too many hoppy brews, but that ache was more than compensated for by the self-righteous buzz of the newly abstinent. So I stocked up on craft NA beer and mandarin orange seltzer and embarked on a new life. No more hungover mornings for me, by golly. I was saving time, money, and brain cells, I bragged to anyone who’d listen.

Eventually, my abstinence lost its luster. My friends were sick of hearing about the extra pounds I was shedding, bored of my gushing about how much better I was feeling. They’d grown tired of my complaints about the poor NA beer selection at most area restaurants. So I taped my mouth shut.

But not to stop from talking. The mouth tape is for sleeping. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was, and often still am, sans tape, a mouth breather. And according to neurobiologist and podcaster Andrew Huberman, this is terrible for you.

Apparently, mouth breathing can lead to health conditions such as gum disease, digestive issues, and chronic fatigue. Mouth breathing in children can even result in facial disfigurement. I’m not kidding. Look it up.

So now, I tape my mouth at night to train myself to nasal breathe while sleeping. But since I’m often congested due to allergies, I have to add a Breathe Right strip over my nose to expand my nostrils. Yes, as I get into bed each night, I do look like I’m recovering from a head-on collision, but my sleep’s never been better and no sign of gum disease for this guy.

Later, when Huberman touted the benefits of early morning sun gazing, I promptly added it to my morning routine. Dawn light exposure is vital to set the body’s circadian clock for mental clarity and better sleep. Now, after I untape my face each morning, I stand motionless in my backyard for 10 minutes facing the rising sun. I’m fairly certain my next-door neighbor Pearline thinks I’ve finally lost it and joined some kind of a solar trance death cult. But later at work, I have more focus. No need for that 3 p.m. coffee and sugar binge to stave off the afternoon drowsies.

Most recently, I’ve taken the plunge. Cold plunge, that is. Huberman is also a huge fan of cold exposure to improve physical health by reducing inflammation and to boost mood by elevating dopamine levels. He didn’t have to tell me twice. I began with cold showers but soon ordered a cheap ice bath from Amazon (Imagine a soft-sided above-ground pool the size and shape of a large barrel).

The ice bath arrived at the end of the summer. I promptly set it up on my back patio and filled it from the hose. The challenge, I soon realized, was cooling that much water that had been sitting the previous day in the summer sun. I bought ice from the gas station, but at four bucks per bag and three bags per plunge, that added up quickly, so I bought four big plastic cooler blocks. But they didn’t get the water cold enough on their own, so I repurposed every Tupperware in the house to make blocks of ice. That did the trick.

So four or five mornings a week, you’ll find me up to my neck in icy water just after my morning sun gaze. This has done nothing to dissuade my neighbor Pearline from thinking I’m nuts, but it is an invigorating way to start the day. Plus, I’m in a much better mood these days.

“What’s next?” a friend smirked as he drained his third beer. “Intermittent fasting? Salt cave? Microdosing? Sensory deprivation tank?”

“I don’t know,” I said, with my own self-satisfied smirk. “We’ll see.”

Dylan Patterson is a writer and filmmaker who teaches English at Cape Fear Community College.