Nobody is looking at you. Everyone is too busy figuring out their own stroke. And the water genuinely does not care. The people who have said something about your body are not in the pool doing the work. You are.
That automatically makes you the athlete in the room. Not them. Get in the water. You belong there.
These words of wisdom come from Aishwarya Jagdish, an Indian triathlete on Threads.
I came across her post shortly after a particularly busy shift at work. All three pools were packed because it’s March Break in Ontario.
I was scanning for safety but couldn’t help but notice how relaxed people were about wearing what made them happy, instead of what media tells you is “right”. I admired the huge variety of people wearing everything from tiny bikinis to swim dresses, T-shirts and leggings on all different bodies.
I love this image of four women in a variety of swimsuits, which I found in Catherine’s post from five years ago about what women over 50 should wear for swimming.
Most were there to play with their kids rather than swimming in the lap pool, but the principle holds whether you are training for a race or building sandcastles at the beach.
My cold is of the regular kind, involving headache, congestion, runny nose, intermittent sore throat, and copious coughing.
It’s not catastrophic, but it is a drag. I’m tired, coughing a bunch, have no appetite, and I need rest and a some down time to get past it.
But have I gotten a lot of rest? NO. Okay, I’ve rested some, but did I take any sick days Monday or Tuesday? NO. Why not?
Hard question. Actually, not-a-hard question: I just didn’t feel like I could take time off work and my regular life to rest and do nothing other than rest until I felt a good deal better.
I did compromise by Zooming into meetings and classes I teach. But, I also prepped for classed and did a little grading and a medium amount of email Monday and Tuesday. And I also prepped for a talk I’m giving on GLP-1 drugs and food noise for a primary care medical practice on Wednesday, because I didn’t want to cancel or reschedule.
I can’t help but think.
What if there’s another way? By Jon Tyson for Unsplash.
OF COURSE there’s another way. There’s calling in sick, which is a privilege for those who have jobs that allow them to. I have such a job– I’m a college professor at a state university and member of a union that fights for and wins benefits like paid sick leave.
BUT BUT… We had a bunch of snow days this term. My students/colleagues will be/feel let down if I stay home. I’ll get behind on work/syllabus/meeting minutes. And it’s not like I’m seriously ill. I just have a cold. What about that?
Right. Exactly–no no no to this line of reasoning. Down with this sort of thing. By Don Lodge for Unsplash.
Sometimes– in particular (but not limited to) when we are sick, we need to shut down and do nothing but rest. Here are some role models I found.
This cat looks very comfy.This fox is sacked out.
Can we all pause and think about following the lead of Cat and Fox when the need arises? I’m working on it. After my talk on Wednesday. By which time I hope and expect I’ll be on the upswing.
But for next time… Here’s hoping, for all of us who work through things when maybe we don’t absolutely have to. Just a thought.
I like snow. I like cosy evenings. I like the way the air smells. I like bundling up to go outside. I’m a big fan of sweaters. I like seeing light on the snow. I even like shovelling snow (up to a certain point!)
And even on the most basic level, I just like the variation from other seasons of the year.
But by the time February comes, it is wearing on me.
It really starts at the end of January when time seems to both stretch and contract so I have really long days but really short weeks and then I somehow get unceremoniously dumped into February.
February takes forever and it is always a big struggle for me. I have extra trouble figuring out my time, my projects, and my capacity. It’s almost like my ADHD meds don’t fully work that month and everything is especially difficult and frustrating.
For example, this year I had a plan to do two small things in February. I was going to do a wall set for one minute a day and I was going to add more vegetables to my lunch
I did pretty well with the lunch vegetables but the wall sit? That just went wrong.
The wall set was somehow both too big a task and two smaller task at once. It felt like I could fit it in anywhere in my day., That sounds like an upside but if I can fit it in anywhere in my day then I’ll end arguing with myself all day about when to do it.
I realized that it’s hard to do a wall sit when I have socks on because I end up, slipping on both the flooring and the carpet while trying to hold the position.
But I could never convince myself to put on my sneakers to do a one minute exercise.
In fact, February fills up my brain so much that the sneaker idea didn’t occur to me until more than halfway through the month.
And I never did convince myself to put the sneakers on.
I noticed this February pattern a few years ago, and I have tried a variety of solutions to cope with this annual bewilderment. Things have improved, but there is still a ways to go and I am hampered by the fact that I often can’t see things are going sideways until they have reached an annoying level of sideways-ness.
Anyway, as you can, imagine, I was really glad to see March.
I’m not saying that March 1 is magic but I’m not NOT saying that.
Once we switch to March, it feels like my brain takes a deep breath and suddenly there’s a bit more space to figure things out.
You can’t tell now, of course, but this is where a single spring flower grows and blooms each year. I love watching for it as spring goes on. Image description, a photo of the back of someone’s fence with snow on the ground and a few evergreen trees about halfway between the viewer and the fence.
And once the clocks change, I see even more of an improvement in my perspective, my overall mood, and in my capacity to make useful plans and to follow through on them.
So, I was thinking about all of those things last week and then I overheard a conversation some friends of mine were having at TKD.
(This had nothing to do with martial arts, it had to do with spring.)
One of my friends is a farmer (she also runs a farm-tech company) and she said that there had been signs of spring for weeks
She said that we probably hadn’t even noticed, but the signs are there – more birds are singing, there are probably more bugs showing up in our houses, and that there are lots of things going on underground that we won’t see for ages.
And when she said that I realized that not only had I heard more birds and seen more bugs, but the sun was feeling a bit warmer and the ground felt somehow different than it had two weeks before.
Recognizing all those things felt so great that I started looking for more signs.
And I noticed that the tips of the branches of the trees were looking a little thicker, like growth has started.
Doesn’t that kind of look like buds at the tip of those branches? I’m not sure at what point a bud can be officially called a bud but something is going on right there.. Image description: A photo of a couple of the branches of the lilac tree in my front yard. At the tips of the branches are the suggestion of buds, even if they’re not buds yet. The branches are in the very foreground and in the background, you can See snow on lawns a few people’s driveways and some of my neighbours houses in the background.
And something about how the snow is sitting on the ground has changed. Even though we had more snow over the weekend, there’s something different and somewhat spring-y about it.
See:
It felt so good and so cheering to take a stroll today. A photo of my dog Khalee on our street on a sunny somewhat springlike day. The sun is behind us and she is standing where she can be seen in the photo. You can only see me as a shadow, and you can see the shadow of the leash that I’m holding that she is on the other end of. Her shadow was visible too, of course. There’s a small snowbank nearby and she’s standing on some greyish asphalt. She is a light brown, medium size dog. She’s mostly facing away from the camera, but she’s turned back a bit probably wondering why I stopped walking.
Even the colour of the sky seems deeper recently. it’s not quite a spring or summer sky, but it’s getting there.
I love seeing that blue get stronger. A photo of several leafless trees and a couple of evergreens next to a fence with snow on the ground. The sky behind the trees is an almost spring colour of blue with a few long white clouds
So with things getting ready to shift outside, it’s no wonder that things are also shifting in my brain.
In the last week or so, I’ve noticed myself thinking a bit more long-term about exercise plans again.
And it feels far easier to get myself to go for a walk, to do some yoga, or to just move around in general.
I was on a writing retreat this past weekend and instead of sitting at a table to work I was motivated to sit on my yoga mat on the floor instead, working on my lap, on a low table, or on the floor itself. That felt like a huge improvement because I know how much more likely I am to move and stretch and take good care of myself while I’m working if I’m seated on the floor.
No, I’m not saying that I couldn’t do any of these things three weeks ago, but now that first step, the initiation of that task, is decidedly easier.
Here on the blog we often jokingly say, “move it, move it, ” echoing those famous fitness ambassadors, the lemurs in the Madagascar movie.
But maybe we ought also to say, “make it, make it.”
The arts are emerging as a fifth, evidence-based pillar of health—alongside diet, sleep, exercise, and nature.
My role as an arts dean rarely overlaps with my role here on the blog, and yet last night’s panel discussion on why the arts matter got me thinking about the connections. The panel featured new faculty members in the arts at the U of Guelph, including Rebecca Barnstaple who works in our new Bachelor of Creative Arts, Health, and Wellness. Her main work is in dance and neuroscience, but on the panel she was talking more generally about the ways in which the arts impact health.
In my life, I’m mostly a passive consumer of the arts. This weekend I went to Tafelmusik’s Celebration of Bach on Friday night, and on Saturday we went to see a student production of Into the Woods. I really enjoyed both, but I suspect that attending plays and concerts doesn’t have the same health impact as making art. I don’t sing in a choir or practise dance. YetI love that when I was searching for past posts on the subject, I found that many other bloggers deliberately make room for making art in their lives. Check out all the posts by Christine and Nat on the subject. Cate and the other Samantha chime in too.
How about you? What do you do that fits into this fifth pillar of health?
Past blog posts on art and well-being:
Crafts and Making Things
1. Handicraft, repetitive stress injuries and keeping nimble fingers— Natalie Hebert, January 30, 2016 A post on how knitting, crocheting, sewing, and needlepoint can actually prevent repetitive stress injuries by cross-training muscles and connective tissues, alongside reflections on yarn crafts as anxiety relief — “I joke that knitting and crocheting helps me turn my ball of anxiety into lovely items” — and on how making things connects the author to women in her life.
2. Big arms and making bread— October 1, 2016 Another post by Nat and this one touches on the emotional and sensory satisfactions of bread-making — the pride of a finished loaf, the smell, the physical feel — framing it as a pleasurable activity that “adds punctuation to the day.”
Music
3. The effect of music on Christine’s brain: A (very) small sample experiment — Christine Hennebury, May 17, 2022 Christine, who has ADHD, experiments with cello music as a tool for focus and calm, reporting that it produces the same “sensory-soothing” effect as a weighted shoulder wrap or lying in a hammock. She describes playing it while meditating, drawing, colouring, or reading and feeling herself sinking deeper into those relaxing activities.
Dance and Movement as Creative Practice
4. Dancing in the kitchen with Christine— Christine Hennebury, December 17, 2024 Christine writes about the joy of kitchen dancing as a form of movement and creative self-expression — informal, accessible, and mood-lifting.
5. Better when I’m dancing— Cate, September 13, 2019 Cate reflects on spontaneously dancing around her barbell during rest periods at the gym, finding that playful, musical movement during workouts lifts her mood and changes how she experiences exercise.
Storytelling as Creative Health Practice
6. Christine’s April Plans— Christine Hennebury, April 1, 2025 Christine opens with a school storytelling tour, observing that storytelling is great for her mental health — especially combined with breaking routine and spending time with a friend — and that the creative work also boosts her physical wellbeing by making movement feel more natural.
Art and Body Image
7. My Body is not the Unfortunate Container for my Personality — and Other Lessons I Learned Art Modeling — Guest post by Samantha Walsh, January 30, 2015 A guest post exploring art modelling as a practice that challenged and transformed the author’s relationship with her body, connecting art, embodiment, and health.
One never knows what one’s media feed will present to one on any given day.
Last Monday morning, the following ad appeared:
Ad for Fatty 15 (TM), a bottle of pills claiming to improve your health in myriad and miraculous ways.
My first thoughts were:
Fatty15?
FATTY15?
Really?!
THAT’S the name the marketing team came up with in order to SELL this to me?
I am so very confused. Thanks Uday Mittai from Unsplash, for the perfect rendition of it.
Okay, what in the wild and unregulated supplement world is this FATTY15 thing? Here’s the TLDR version.
There are a lot of fatty acids.
They are found in lots of foods we eat.
Omega-3 fatty acids are a good fatty acid. They’re found in e.g. salmon, walnuts and edamame.
Trans-fats are a bad fatty acid. They’re found in e.g. many ultra-processed and fried foods, and many baked goods.
C15:0 is a recently found fatty acid. We don’t know much about it.
A new company called FATTY15 (again, wtaf) wants to sell it to you, promising you whole health in a bottle.
BUT BUT… HOW DID THE DOLPHINS GET INVOLVED?
Patience– I’m getting to this now.
It turns out that some dolphins work for the US Navy. They detect underwater mines and enemy swimmers (don’t ask me how). Part of their employee health plan includes research on and treatment of diseases related to dolphin-aging (they get some of the same diseases we do).
This person below– Dr. Stephanie Venn-Watson, the translational medicine and research program director for the Navy’s National Marine Mammal Foundation– led a crack team of dolphin health experts to manage their care.
Honestly, if my job were to make sure that dolphins lived their best lives ever while in the employ of the United States government, I’d look that happy, too.
The team analyzed the dolphins’ blood samples taken throughout their lives to identify molecules present in the healthiest dolphins. One of the top nutrients was the molecule C15:0, a saturated fatty acid (pentadecanoic acid). In the human diet, C15:0 is present in dairy fat—whole milk, butter, and cheeses.
Obviously, dolphins don’t have that option after infancy, unlike humans. But don’t worry– your research dollars found a solution:
…when they fed [older] dolphins with chronic diseases diets higher in C15:0 (fatty fish), they became healthier. Further research supported their findings that C15:0 lowers risk and can actually reverse many chronic diseases [in older dolphins, maybe], making it an essential fatty acid, a nutrient that the body does not produce but is essential to health.
Venn-Watson co-wrote this paper to argue for proof of concept for C15:0, but with no human studies. Then she started a company to try to sell C15:0 to humans, since dolphins a) don’t carry credit cards; and b) C15:0 supplements are covered by their navy employee health plan. She also wrote a book to help shill this stuff. And gave a TEDx talk to shill some more. But we have any actual evidence that it works?
Healthier skin/hair? NO Balanced metabolism? Uh-uh. Deeper Sleep? No chance. 3X more cellular benefits than omega-3? What does this even mean?
And is it FDA-approved? Hell to the no. Just like all those other untested supplements. Please, oh, please just save your money.
BUT BUT THE FATTY15 WEBSITE!
It says all kinds of things that maybe are true. What about their claims?
To sum up:
The dolphins are going to be okay.
We are going to be okay.
Eating food and moving our bodies are good things to do, be we human or dolphin.
The one supplement that I personally can recommend is to supplement your viewing by adding Heated Rivalry to your watchlist. You’ll be glad you did.
It was after 8 pm on January 16th when I got a message on Instagram from Courtney.
“Hey! I’m helping to start this new league in London, ON. Can you pass it along? Appreciate it so much.”
What you need to know about Courtney is her gift at connecting people.
She hosts a book club with her wife Pam. I’ve met so many great people there.
Before that, always invites from Courtney to go skating, play soccer, baseball? So many things.
I had met her many years ago when her ex and I worked together at The AIDS Committee of London. We didn’t know each other very well but appreciated each other’s vibes.
Knowing how good she is at bringing people together I was happy to amp up the posts for Queer Hockey London.
Before I knew it, all the people I knew in the community were talking about it. Even at my physiotherapist!
I was thrilled when the call went out for a game at the arena at Western Fair on Saturday March 7th. Admission was free with an option to support the Queer Food Bank run by PFLAG in London, Ontario.
I went with Michel and our eldest, Oli. We saw so many old friends. Those students on placement 15 years ago? Here with partners AND BABIES! So many wonderful people from babes in arms to seniors.
The audience was friends and family of players but also random community members just there for the fun.
Puck drop at center ice. Photo by Dana Nosella, used with permission.
People were handing out pride flags to waive. There was an inflated rainbow unicorn running around who was later joined by a dinosaur. There were pompoms! My roller derby friend Dawn was playing tunes.
Everyone cheered for each goal, regardless of team. Yay!!
A happy hockey player smiles at the camera. Photo by Dana Nosella, used with permission.
There was a lot of social media coverage as well as radio and our local London Free Press
“Rather than filling Friday night with errands or social plans, fredagsmys makes rest the focus. “Fredagsmys, literally ‘cozy Friday,’ is a Swedish tradition of staying in after work on Friday to spend time with friends and family, playing board games, watching TV, and having snacks,” says Eugene Grudnikoff, MD, staff psychiatrist at Radial. “Swedish tacos, blankets, and lit candles create a relaxed atmosphere to end the workweek and mindfully shift into the weekend.”
This weekly ritual in Sweden is especially common during the winter, when people are more inclined to intentionally slow down and stay indoors at the end of the workweek. “You let the lights down, wear comfortable clothes, eat some easy and comforting food, like snacks or take-out,” says Eleni Nicolaou, PhD, art therapist and creative wellness coach at Davincified. According to her, the ritual works because it creates a clear transition from work mode to resting mode that reinforces a sense of predictability and psychological safety.”
My two cents: While I am a big believer (for me, I know it’s not best for everyone) in working when I’m working and taking weekends off, and I like the idea of rituals to mark transitions, this sounds too cozy for me. What am I doing this Friday? Going into the big city for dinner with friends and a concert. Saturday I’ll ride my bike and go to a play. Sunday might be anti-gravity restorative yoga. There will definitely be dog walks. Barring an emergency on campus, there’ll be no work work, though there will be some cleaning and housework. Maybe what this tells me is that I don’t need help shifting into weekend mode. Weekend mode comes pretty naturally. I think if I could pick one summer Friday ritual it might be an after work bike ride and a backyard BBQ with friends after. How about you? What do you think of the cozy Friday idea?
Forget those images of lifeguards and swimmers with teeth sparkling white in their tanned faces. Apparently, swimmer’s teeth is a thing.
What is it and how does it happen? Apparently the chlorine and other pool chemicals can change the ph in your mouth, leading the discolouration, tartar, and even softened, cracked teeth. A swimmer friend brought it to my attention, and the consensus in our little group is that it can be a real issue.
All three of us have more than normal tartar at every dental check-up, and one has issues with discolouration and cracking. I’m curious about how many members of our respective swim clubs also suffer from it.
The advice to manage it all seems to boil down to: brush your teeth, especially before exercising; drink plenty of water; avoid sugary drinks and snacks; get to the dentist regularly.
This is good advice for everyone, so I’ll tuck this information away, keep up with my dental hygiene, and swim as often as possible in lakes or rivers.
A woman in a grey bathing cap and goggles shows off her smile from a pool with dark blue water.
I’ve been near and in water for as long as I can remember. I learned how to swim when I was age 4– my teenaged aunts took me to a local creek, put me in the water and taught me dog paddling, lying on my back and front, and how to hold my breath underwater. By age 6, I was able to swim in the deep end of the pool by myself with some confidence. My niece and nephews followed the same pattern: early swim exposure and lessons, and lots of trips to the pool and ocean. All my family are comfortable swimmers.
But not everyone is. In this article in the Economist, we read a short history of the race, class and income gaps that divide swimmers from non-swimmers. Here’s a graph they created from data gathered from the Centers for Disease Control (in 2023, the good ol’ days for the institution…)
A graph showing percentage of US non-swimmers by income. We see big racial gaps even controlling for income.
According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, black children aged five to 14 are more than five times as likely to drown in a swimming pool as their white counterparts. Black adults are more than five times as likely as whites to report that they cannot swim.
Many colleges and universities used to have swim tests as a graduation requirement, but that has been in decline in the past decades. The most recent Ivy League school to drop the swim test is Dartmouth College. This spring will be the first year their graduating class will not consist entirely of people who either passed the swim test or passed a swim class. Why?
It’s complicated.
In addition to the cost and inconvenience if running a swim program for all students, the large racial gaps between swimmers and non-swimmers among college students make some college administrators uneasy. Here’s a quote from the article:
Williams College found that between 2013 and 2019, 81% of those who failed its 50-yard swim test were students of colour. After a university committee deemed this “problematic” in 2022 the faculty voted to scrap the requirement, citing its “disparate impact” on minority students. “You’re reinforcing systemic oppression in some ways,” the school’s athletic director told the Chronicle of Higher Education. When Dartmouth eliminated its own swim test later that year, school administrators offered a similar explanation, noting that those who failed were “overwhelmingly students of colour”.
At the same time, some colleges are leaning into the swim test as a way to “right historical wrongs”, in their view.
In 2024 a Cornell faculty committee voted to retain the university’s swim requirement. In its resolution the committee acknowledged racial disparities in swimming ability but argued that the test should remain precisely in order to help narrow them. “By providing formal swimming instruction”, the committee concluded, “Cornell is doing its small part to help right the wrongs of US history and close the racial gap in accidental drowning in this country.
MIT (my alma mater) has retained the swim test as well. Here’s what they have to say about it:
“We have a very intellectually bright population,” [MIT Director of Physical Education] Sampson Moore said. “Sometimes either they don’t have the time to do it as they’re growing up because they’re really focused on their studies, or they didn’t have access because they were an international student and it wasn’t as common.
“All of our students, I would bet my paycheck, are going to be leaders of something, right? Whether they’re a leader of their family or they’re leader of a department or a corporation, they can influence those around them,” she continued.
Is mandating a swim proficiency test imposing an undue burden on students who have been unduly burdened all their lives? Or is it a benefit, helping non-swimming students learn a valuable life skill?
I talked with a friend who is on Team NO-SWIM-TEST, citing how it can stigmatize and burden non-white students. I am on Team SWIM-TEST because, as a public health ethicist, I really want fewer US children, teenagers and adults to die from drowning.
And I admit, as a lifelong swimmer, I want everyone to have the chance to discover the joy of being a water creature, even temporarily.
But I see the complexity here.
If you find this topic interesting (as I certainly do), check out the book Contested Waters It’s a cultural and racial history of swimming pools in the US, documenting and analyzing the shifts from large numbers of public non-segregated bathing pools in urban areas to private, restricted recreational suburban pool clubs.
What do I wish we could do about this? Look to Australia– they have school-funded swimming and water-safety programs all over the country. However, even in Australia there isn’t full access to and implementation of swimming lessons for all school-age children. This is both a shame and a danger for people living in a country with 34,000 kilometers of coastline.
Readers, what do you think? Obvious, national funding for learn-to-swim programs for children would be a great solution. But in lieu of that, what about learning to swim in college? I’d love to hear from you.
