The human body is an amazing thing. It's capable of jumping high, running fast, lifting a lot, contorting itself in various ways, fighting disease, breaking down food, excreting waste, and thinking hundreds of thoughts at the same time. With all those functions though, comes a need to recover. I neglected that fact in high school and college when I thought I could just get 4 or 5 hours of sleep the next day and be fine, but eventually your body needs to recover, and sleep is the best way to recover. Your body craves it, your body needs it to function, and at this moment MJ is sleeping next to me while her body tries to recover from consecutive weeks of hard work without much sleep.
Recovery is important in all facets of life. The U.S. stock market just had a massive recovery from its December 24 lows of last year (Red Christmas Eve that almost seemed like a flash crash), and it was reflective of most recoveries: it tries to get back to normal as soon as possible, and it's our decision-making brain's job to let it as much time as needed to do so.
I always liked Wolverine and Claire Bennet (from Heroes), superheroes who had the quick recovery (regenerative abilities is the fancy term) powers, because I felt I had a similar power: I could heal pretty quickly from cuts, bruises, etc. They would hurt the day of, but then gradually fade away without issue each time. I just counted my blessings and accepted it, but now I realize it's because I probably got some good sleep the nights those injuries happened and my body fully recovered by the time I woke up. It is really cool to see living things recover, especially the human body. Unfortunately, most living things don't have as good of regenerative abilities as humans: flowers can't regrow their petals, etc. Even for humans the regenerative abilities are limited, it's not like humans can regrow a finger, limbs, etc. But for those things that do regrow, its remarkable. It's amazing that dead skin can regrown into new skin fairly quickly, that acne that was really gross and disgusting a few days ago can drop out due to the formation of new skin; it's cool that hair grows up (at least for now for me), I actually like the feeling of shaving every week and feeling the hair grow from scratch, it's like growing a new lawn every week or so.
By the way, for those people who have acne, I got tons of advice before from doctors, my parents, friends, TV commercials, online websites, etc., etc., but I feel like I need to share my one recovery pill: water. Drink lots of water. Water seems to be a recovery device already to help avoid dehydration, cramping, etc., but it keeps the skin hydrated and pores from getting clogged, is my theory. If the human body is a well-oiled machine that regenerates constantly, water, I feel like, is the oil. And add oil! 加油!
It's unfortunate that some people try to cheat the recovery process in order to engender their athletic performance (through steroids, testerone, etc.) I prefer the natural, organic process of letting one's body do the work on its own. It works miracles.
I need to recover after a hectic Chinese New Year's! Ate a lot of food with my parents and cousins who came from China with her 7-year-old daughter! I'm not one to gush about how cute children are, I've worked at a summer camp with tons of kids 4 to 10 years old (arguably in the "cute zones") so I don't get impressed as easily, but my niece is definitely very very cute. She laughs a lot, which helps, doesn't cry (as far as I can tell), imitates adults, thinks adults are cool, says funny things, and is willing to jump around and socialize with adults. That's a dream kid package (she has some small flaws like being bossy, but those can slide when she's really cute). And yea, she's a cute kid. Definitely a kid that can make people hardened against having kids change their minds and hope to have a kid like her.
But anyway, need to recover form the Chinese New Year diet of dumplings, duck, fish, red bean soop, Korean BBQ ribs (somehow has turned into a Yan family dinner tradition). The problem with the Chinese is there are too many foods to eat! Especially with the winter-like temps in L.A. recently, I haven't been able to get rid of the water weight. If only the body can also "recover" back to the weight that I want to be! Actually, that is a thing, the body loses weight while sleeping, and if I don't get enough sleep I gain wet. True fact. That's why MMA fighters weigh in in the morning at their lowest weight and why I weigh myself right after waking up, cuz that's the most favorable time.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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