This past Friday I faced a familiar conundrum: complete one more task before picking up kids from school or spend some time exercising as a way of transitioning from work to parenting. I knew that if I attempted one more task I'd risk getting my mind stuck in work-mode with kids in tow. It's completely disorienting when trying to talk to an 8-year-old about dreams of YouTubing, a 7th grader with what junior high drama, two high schoolers with their more "grown up" issues. And—oh yeah—there's a one-year-old singing Baby Shark at all waking hours. My mind would be still be working out the kinks in my workflow or more edits to make on a podcast while constantly making me feel that I hadn't accomplished enough today.

Add to this the concerns of doing a half-ass job because of the time constraint or wondering if I'm just trying to get out of work. It’s quite the pickle.

As counter-intuitive as it is to step away from my work during my work hours, I did. I went for a run. And here's why. I've never—and yes, I'm using a superlative—I've never regretted a good physical workout. The sweat, the energy spent, and the energy gained from endorphins have never disappointed me, and this Friday was no exception. Solutions I'd been searching materialized. My thinking simplified. I was ready to be present with my kids.

Exercising re-positioned me.

To be clear, it took me all of thirty seconds to make this decision. Recently, I had taken the other route and felt the muddle of parenting while still in work mode. It wasn't worth it, and—yes—I did have to return and fix unnecessary mistakes because I was working with an EOD functioning mind.

Exercise as a re-positioning activity isn't new. I've done it before, but Friday was a good reminder of the connection between cognitive excellence and exercise. Studies repeatedly document that exercise enhances learning, and it's not stretch to see my work, which mainly consists of writing, reevaluating systems of thought, collaborating—i.e., high levels of cognitive load—as a constant learning process. A recent article by Peter Blomstrand and Jan Engvall postulates that aerobic, physical exercise prior to a learning activity enhances attention, concentration, and learning and memory functions in youth. In another study that appeared last year in Neurobiology of Learning and Memory finds that exercise possesses "the ability to generalize past learning to novel task demands." In other words, connections within the medial temporal lobe network can occur after the lesson has transpired and during or after the exercise is happening.

I distinctly remember this happening while I was dissertating. A connection that I was trying to make between Plato and Aristotle's uses of phantasia (φαντασία) in their texts the Theaetetus and De Anima, respectively, came to me while I was running alongside the Iowa River about a half-hour after stepping away from my early morning writing routine. Like cream rising to the top of your morning coffee, the connection I had been wanting to make an hour before emerged, and the connection helped me finish my first chapter.

I now remember that I blogged about this when working at the College of Charleston. In this post I'm considering a concept called "percolation" that Benedict Carey discusses in How We Learn. Here's a summary:

Percolation works essentially like this. You have a project that relies on your creativity for originality, such as you might want to offer in a term paper. You begin by journaling your thoughts, perhaps listing a number of questions that you would like to be able to answer by the end. You work on the project a little every day so that you create some traction—i.e., forward movement that feels like you understand the problems more clearly, articulate the possible solutions more concisely, etc. When you encounter seemingly irreconcilable ideas, you try one way then another without the pressure of having to reconcile the issues right now; eventually, you find a solution. All the time, the ideas and concepts, constructions and deconstructions of what you have been working on are being stirred together inside the pot of your mind so that during an afternoon walk in the park or an early morning run a solution bubbles to the top at which point you make a mental note and reflect on it during your next journaling session. You find yourself working on the project consciously and subconsciously over the course of several months.

Granted, my decision on Friday came down to a question of values, but it's comforting to know our minds can continue to process information subconsciously during physical exercise.

Friday's success is also boosting my confidence in my intuition. I can feel myself slowing down., checking social media more often, distracted by YouTube rabbit holes, etc.

Productivity wanes.

Most of us have probably heard the phrase "Nothing in excess" or it's positive equivalent "Everything in moderation." Both come from the ancient Greek mēden agan (μήδεν ἄγαν), which is likely an equivalent of "Know yourself." Both were at the Delphic Temple in Delphi and likely meant this: Remember you're mortal. Don't reach for things that are immortal. Know your limitations."

I've not thought of "Nothing in excess" within the context of personal intuition. But I like it. I can sense when I'm attempting a "bridge too far" to borrow the WWII metaphor. My intuition is telling me that I can squeeze another in, but it's likely not going to net the intended result.

Exercising as re-positioning

Balance is a dynamic space

On authenticity