Mental illnesses often come with the stigmatized belief that those who struggle with depression or anxiety are weak and fragile. Many people hide mental health struggles due to shame. To improve quality of life, it's important to work through any barriers that are preventing you from addressing your mental health in a positive and productive way. Although May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I always find November to be the most difficult month for my mental health due to the cooler weather, no more races (or planned travel), darker days and a change in pace. I am already finding myself a bit more sad as this will be my first winter without Campy in over 16 years. Mental health isn't just about how you think. It's about how you feel and act. It includes your emotional, psychological and social well-being. It determines how you make choices throughout the day, how you handle stress and how you interact with others. Mental health is important throughout your entire life.
Tomorrow is the 2024 Men's Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii. The females showed us great resiliency, strength and courage on/by the mountains of Nice, France and tomorrow the men will battle it out on an island. The heat and humidity in Kona is something that you have to feel to understand. The human body can do incredible things - like race for 140.6 miles - but it thrives within a limited range of body temperatures. Muscle contractions keep the body moving but a substantial amount of energy is converted into heat. As a result, the body generates a large amount of heat which significantly raises the body temperature. To help keep the body temperature somewhat stable and to prevent overheating, the body must dissipate heat through sweating, increased blood flow to the skin and increased respiration. For the body to do what it needs to do to help you maintain a stable core temperature, you have a responsibility to keep your body hydrated. And hydration doesn't m