Overview

Because I didn't pay attention to taking care of my body during university, spending long hours looking at my phone (mainly reading novels), it caused a series of serious consequences for my health. After graduation, I became aware of this problem (because it had already caused significant negative impacts on my life and work), such as severe dark circles from staying up late looking at my phone, back pain from poor posture while using my phone, and inability to sit for long periods.

In 2018, I started looking for solutions. Initially, I thought about exercising more, controlling my diet, and using my phone less.

This did help. The exercise methods I chose at the time were swimming and running. After persisting for a year, there was indeed improvement. Especially after swimming, it felt very comfortable, as if my energy had returned.

However, I didn't overcome the habit of using my phone. I still often stayed up late at night. This seemed to cause my back pain to worsen. The hospital didn't have a good solution. When working at home or in the lab, I would even kneel-sit, which looked quite strange. Of course, kneeling is actually a very comfortable and healthy posture, just that it causes knee pain after sitting for too long.

By 2019, after swimming at the gym, I came into contact with yoga. I enjoyed practicing yoga stretches with the gym's yoga instructor after swimming, and the results were quite good. Maybe because I didn't practice systematically, it didn't obviously help my body.

But in 2019, I started extensively reading scientific theoretical knowledge about exercise, diet, and nutrition, and began to reasonably match my diet and practice. This was also very helpful for subsequent improvement.

By 2021, I coincidentally learned about traditional Chinese practices like standing meditation (Zhan Zhuang). I started practicing irregularly. Actually, those who understand know that practicing irregularly like this won't help much, just like water being heated but the fire being turned off periodically, so it can never boil. But this intermittent practice still helped improve my health. After practice, I would feel warmth throughout my body and strength in my legs.

By 2022, I started practicing Ashtanga yoga. This is a yoga that combines flexibility and strength. After practicing, my back problems were basically gone.

By 2024, I started exploring traditional Chinese practices like body stacking and Taoist cultivation. I haven't persisted for long yet, will update with effects later.

What I have in mind