#marcus booked a therapy session right after this

[hoperays-song]

Concerning parenting moments

Johnny: I really went from being a full-blown child prodigy to having the processing speed of a bag of cement and the working memory of a concussed apple. And honestly? I’m okay with that.

Marcus, just trying to eat his breakfast: Johnny... what the actual fuck?

[buzzerbeaterbin]

Sean, my new PT

I saw a sports medicine doc back in the spring for my lower back pain, which has persisted since April 2022 despite ample rest, medication, 4 months of physical therapy, all kinds of exercises, and plenty of copays. This doc was amazing - so much so that I am now considering going into the specialty despite never having given it a second thought prior. Her treatment plan essentially boiled down to having me try working with a new PT, someone on her team with lots of experience with athletes in my age group and spine/hip pathology in particular. I finally had my first appointment with him today after booking it right after my MCAT (I know I'm generally healthy and in no place to complain on my own behalf but seriously smh @ our healthcare system bc patients always have to wait forever to be seen).

I love physical therapists, and in general, the study of physical therapy and kinesiology. For reasons similar to why I fell in love with yoga, I am consistently amazed by how such seemingly subtle stretches, movements, and form adjustments can make a world of difference in someone's pain or mobility, and how people I've met for mere minutes can tell me things about my own body that I've never known despite being the sentient soul living inside of it. I remember meeting Marcus (a personal trainer I got one free session with at my gym) and Kim (my physical therapist from Oct-Jan) and feeling stunned by how quickly they were able to catch on to my left hip instability. Today, Sean took my awe to the next level, and I knew he'd be different when the first thing he told me was that he could tell I was left-handed simply from the way that I walk.

He spent a solid hour and a half on his physical exam + teaching me about the how and the why my spine, sacrum, and - news to me - shoulder and cervical have been doing tons of compensatory work (possibly to restore equilibrium from my wack vestibular system. tbd on that) to, at the end of the day, protect me from collapsing, which in my case has resulted in a chronically stiff lumbar region. Yes, my unconditioned glutes, hamstrings, and core may be subject to improvement, but that fact alone can't explain the chronic pain, because if that were the only reason - wouldn't everybody on earth be feeling the same way? For the first time since onset, everything finally made sense. His clinical reasoning took into account all of my unique presentations and deficits, which was extraordinarily appreciated, because up until today I was only ever treated like a generic back pain patient.

E.g. My left hip is unstable when I squat. But why? Unlike the "general weakness" conclusion that I was fed since learning how to do compound lifts, so much clicked for me today when Sean said, yes, the left gives out first - but because the right hip flexor is severely tight, likely from the compensatory work that my spine has been teaching it to do. We did a series of stretches and adjustments together to try and loosen up my hip joint. I felt no different sensation afterwards, but when I tried squatting again - like magic, my left hip didn't give out nearly as much as before. The video evidence proved to me everything I needed to know. I scheduled another appointment with him about a month from now (because I will not realistically have to time or money to drive 30 min away on a weekly basis while I'm in school, also I never understood why I was seeing my other PT weekly because how much progress can I really make in a week?) and he gave me a program to follow until then. I plan on committing to it religiously.

Now that it's been over a year with this pain and consistent disappointment in my lack of progress, I was beginning to accept that this was my new normal. I went in to my appointment today, having almost forgotten about it since I scheduled it months ago, fully expecting to be given generic advice and planning on not seeing him again. I guess I still went because my subconscious had hoped that maybe, just maybe, something would be different this time. And maybe, just maybe, this time it will be.

[peeterparkr]

clear|20|t.h.

CHAPTER 20: ECLIPSE.

pairing: surfer!tom x reader

word count: 5.5k

warnings: angst, cancer mention, swearing, chemotherapy. 

summary: The summer ends. 

series masterlist playlist (updated!) previous chapter epliogue

what did you think?

Hello! This is the Last Chapter of Clear, thanks for everyone who’s stuck around through this mess, thank you so much for your support. Love you guys, I loved writing this and while there’s still an epilogue on its way, I am sad this ended but... I’m glad there are people who liked this story as much as I loved writing it. I listened to Harry Styles’ new album while writing this. And you should too. Or listen to the playlist. 

That was not the last time Tom had ended up in the hospital. As the summer came to an end, there were more and more nights when Y/N would be in the waiting room along with his brothers and parents. 

Other times Y/N would go to the beach and facetime him so they could watch the sunset together. Still, they tried to see summer differently. Like a summer chickflick. Ice cream, sunny days, and sitting on the swing outside the cottage. Y/N had begun painting her grandfather, her grandmother. 

Suns and Moons. 

Her grandparents' house was now painted with a beautiful story, with a sea, which began with shells, and followed with waves and riptide, and then followed with storms, and Ferris wheels, ice cream, suns, moons, surfboards and lighthouses. It was a masterpiece, no doubt. A story worth telling. 

Y/N had organized a surprise, a surfing competition between them, simply because Tom had not been able to participate. Due to her grandfather's incident, they had to return back and y/n was always blaming herself for him losing his chance.  It was a game between them, clearly, Tom won. 

“When will you go to London?” She asked Tom, while they were in the Blue Valley, he was lying on the sand while she painted shells, of different colours. 

"I need to save money, maybe in a year," Tom confessed. 

Y/N fell silent. She didn't want to say much. One year. 

"What?"

Tom sighed. “I thought I mentioned it.” 

“But… You said…” 

“Yes, I will go to London,” said Tom. "But it's expensive ..." 

Y/N sighed. "And what if ... I could sell my grandfather's car, it would help you-" 

"I don't want to be anyone's charity." 

"It's not charity," Y/N said. "I love you and-" 

"I don't want you to, Y/N," Tom said. "Really, I can wait." 

"Your cancer can’t." 

They had been counted, the times Y/N had used the word with c. But that was the time it hurt the most. Tom supposed she was right. But there wasn't much he could do. 

"Well, maybe not a year, but ... You know, I still have to fix things." 

"Well, fix them. Time does not wait, time does not forgive." 

And she was right. Time simply follows. The tide was not going to go down. Tom had to make a decision. And it was still not clear what it should take.

There are no people who are meant to be. There are no soulmates, as some like to call them. Love does not come from someone who is tailor-made for someone. No, love, it's a decision. And it is choosing to continue taking it. But sometimes the decision that has to be made involves letting go. 

They were both watching a sunset, letting the waves wet their legs, sitting on that surfboard that Y/N had painted. Both feared for the end. Because well, everything comes to an end.

Summer was over, his love was not, but they had to make decisions. Decisions that would probably make that wave that looked far away, terrifying for Y/N and challenging for Tom, become somewhat minimal. It was such a tiny wave compared to the decision they would have to make. 

It is not easy to say goodbye. Less when two people love each other. 

But they had already learned lessons, the tide had brought to the shore ways to heal them both. Heal them of diseases. Make a smile again after a dark moment. They found themselves in each other's eyes. 

And it came down to something simple, to a story that Y/N would have loved to see in a romantic movie. Making it simply as simple and superficial. A surfer falling in love with a painter. A popular boy falling in love with a quiet girl. A girl who was born again, and a boy who lived again. A boy who turned all gold and a girl who turned all blue. A girl who was the moon and a boy who was the sun.

Simple. Beautiful. Colourful. 

There are times when you can not stand with the different options and alternatives that life gives you. It is easy to accept that there is a risk that is actually based on non-existent probabilities.

But they had already decided. Tom had decided it, at least. They would have to break up. Tom had taken it for granted, for her, for him. Because he didn't know what the future would hold. 

It was healthy. For now. Because while they had found each other in their eyes, they needed to know who they were after being reborn. Who they were after seeing that the sea had decanted the salt that was leftover. Heal wounds. They needed to be alone, no matter how much it hurt.

Besides, Tom wouldn't go to London. Not so soon, however. He had to get prepared for the chemos and had to take more therapy sessions. But they would see each other. Tom thought, at least.

It was not a pretty conversation. Not at first, at least. 

"I need you to live," Tom told her. "Y/N, listen, listen." 

"You promised not to get rid of me," Y/N said, raising her voice. "No ... No." 

"It's temporary." 

"And what do you know?" Y/N finally shouted. “You can't… You can't just say goodbye to someone you love when you still have time.” 

“I am doing it for you.” 

“For me?” She laughed. "Tom, you said it yourself, time ... All this." 

Tom took his hands. "It's temporary, easy, easy y/n, we'll ... we'll see what happens in London." 

"But, Tom what if ..." 

"You're being very negative, Y/N," Tom continued. 

She sighed. "That’s who I am, okay?" She laughed softly, mocking herself. "I always turn everything blue, remember?" 

"But you also see the positive side, yes, I love you, but this ... This is ... For both of us you ... were reborn y/n and I still need to know who I am. I barely know it anymore, and I need to figure it out. Alone. ” 

He kissed him, an innocent kiss. 

"I will never stop loving you," Y/N told him. 

"Until my last breath." Tom had hugged her. But she had screamed again, and it didn't end well. 

They had been, for the last days, both fighting for their decision. Y/N said they had to be together. Tom begged her to find out who she was. 

“It's just… Tom, no… I don't understand why it has to end like this, we should be like any movie, you know? Any love story. ” 

“We are not a book, we are not a story, Y/N, you said it, ”Tom reminded her. “I need… I need to know that I will be fine.” 

“You will be,” said Y/N. "And although ..." 

"We both know that there is a possibility that I won’t be, everything looks blurry, Y/N, I can't commit to this," Tom explained. "I want you to ... Be happy." 

"But I'm happy with you," she said. 

"And I am happy with you, but I need you to get ahead, okay?" Tom asked. 

"But how?" She frowned. “Please, do… Do something, so then I can hate you and even forget you.” 

“What?” 

“If you're going to break up with me at least make me hate you, it will be easier to know that it's over for something ugly rather than knowing we still love each other. ” 

“No, because we love each other...Exactly because of that, I don't want to say goodbye with tears and reproaches, ”Tom asked. “You just have to let us go.” 

“No, Tom… You can't build… It's like… It will erase a whole summer,” she explained. 

"No, no," Tom said. "Do you remember everything you painted?" He asked. 

“Tom, Tom, please,” she rolled her eyes, “not the time.” 

“Our story will remain there, on those paintings,” I continued. 

"What a stupid thing to say," she frowned, laughing. 

Tom was thrown back. “What?” 

“All of this summer, for nothing? And you try to come up with a wise romantic thing so I simply forget you're breaking up with me? ” 

Tom closed his eyes. "Y/N." 

"It is stupid," she continued. “Sorry, sorry. It's all so blurry right now. ” 

“Exactly, maybe this will make things finally… clear. ” 

 And that had been his goodbye. So Y/N had returned to her old apartment in London, she would continue studying and painting. Tom kept surfing. Because sometimes love is about letting go. Sometimes love is simply knowing that you have to move on. 

They stopped talking. She was finding herself in London, with her life back in her sights. To Tom's bad luck, Y/N had started to hang out with Marcus Jones. 

Nothing important, but Tom knew that this could be good, in the future, at least. Tom knew who Marcus Jones was for Y/N. Marcus Jones had been what had kept Y/N a little distracted. Tom thought they had started dating. 

He did not ask her about it, he did not talk to her.

How do you continue life after having lived a summer with such enthusiasm? The worst part about pain is that when you think it finally ends, it comes back stronger. To test your resilience, which sometimes isn't enough.

After months, Tom had gone to London. Around Christmas time. Talk about a Miracle. 

Something that nobody says about chemos is how they take your life by putting your death on an extension. 5 years. 5 years that were nothing more than a promise without foundation. Chemotherapies that were just a way to delay the inevitable. They did not promise to eradicate it, and they did not promise that he would last the whole 5 years. 

Tom was listening to those words. He was in London and his mother was holding his hand. The doctor was explaining the whole procedure and Tom really didn't want to pay attention. A lot of blablabla about how there could be side effects and how they didn't make promises, how this could weaken him and how he would go once a week. The cares he had to maintain and how he was going to lose a bit of his essence. 

Tom knew that. Tom was perfectly sure that despite being alive, he would not have a... life. 

But there was a motivation, Y/N. Y/N was in London. And at first, he had hesitated to call her, but eventually ... He called Joanne.  

And the response was quick, they would see each other in a cafe. 

How different everything was. The sea breeze was no longer felt, and both were in big coats and with their cheeks pink from the cold. And yet, seeing her, Tom remembered July, with the heat and the tide and the waves and the fires. Tom saw Joanne and remembered Y/N. With his sleepless nights and painting and discussions ending in kisses. Y/N was fine, he knew. 

Tom ... Tom would be fine. Eventually.

He saw her and they hugged each other like old friends, as if they had gone to study elsewhere and simply gathered to know what was going to happen through life. 

And they started to catch up, telling about their adventures. She would often visit the town, near Croyde, stayed at her grandfather's house and dated Haz, but Tom usually avoided seeing her, it was hard to know that he had let Y/N go, with a silly excuse. And he felt again as if it were summer, as if it were an afternoon in July with Y/N's embrace listening to Joanne’s stories.  

Tom explained, how it would be, his cycles would last 6 weeks. He would be there for a while. He told her he would have breaks and told her he’d probably go surf in those breaks, although he knew he wouldn’t have the strength, but he didn’t tell her that, only the good things. He didn't tell Joanne about the side effects or the bad times that would happen, he didn't say it was basically postponing his death, nor did he tell her it wasn't safe. He told her that after 5 years, he would be cancer-free. 

He asked for Y/N. Because he knew that being with her would make everything clearer. 

"She's studying, she's doing a speciality... And in the afternoons she studies arts," she explained. "I thought you would call her." 

"I will ..." Tom replied. "Eventually." 

She looked at him. 

"She still loves you, you know?" Joanne told him. 

Tom cleared his throat. "And I love her." 

"I never understood ... What happened." 

Tom sighed. “I think we were both in murky waters, in the end, her greatest fear was true. We were swimming in riptide. ” 

“She used the word storm, ”Joanne said. 

Tom laughed. "She always said that I was one." 

"Are you?" 

Tom laughed. "I didn't plan it to be this bittersweet." 

Joanne shook her head. "You don't always have a happy ending." 

"We wouldn't have had it anyway," Tom said sadly. 

"What about the 5 years of treatment?" Joanne asked. 

Tom shrugged. "Nothing sure." 

"Then?" Joanne asked. “Why the hell are you not going and looking for her? Have a fucking happy ending! Live what you have left together! ”  

Tom sighed. “Yes, I suppose, yes. But what about Marcus? I know she is seeing him. ” 

“ They work together, I don't know if they date, I just know that whenever I go to Croyde, she asks me about you, I can't tell her much because, well, I don't see you much, I also didn't know that you were in London. ” 

“ And why doesn't she call me? ” 

“I guess because you asked her not to. ”Joanne crossed her arms. 

"Well, I ..." Tom sighed. “Will you tell her?” 

“I don't know, Y/N has changed.” 

“Is she okay?” 

“Yes, perfectly, she keeps painting and… She's happy,” Joanne admitted. “She brought the blue Jeep, she wants to open her gallery.” 

“See? That is her happy ending, she has ... to live, take a brush and paint it all blue. ” 

Joanne looked at him. "You know, I think I owe you a favour," she reminded him. 

"I thought we had already settled it," Tom denied. "I mean, I owed you one and now ..." 

"I don't know," Joanne chuckled. “I could tell her to come now, you know? Tell her I want to see her in this cafe ... "

"I think it's not time yet. "Tom sighed. “I wanna… Heal, you know? I want to be sure that medicine will work. ” 

“ And if it doesn't? ”Joanne asked, a little more directly than Tom wanted. 

Tom crossed his arms. "Well thanks for your good will and vibes." 

Joanne closed her eyes. “Sorry, sorry… I just can't stand to know that… You are apart, you know? I see a whole summer and it seems that everything went to hell in a second, please, you are Y/N and Tom! You have to go find her in the rain while she is crying in a car. ” 

Tom sighed. "Yes, yes, problem is, London is too big, and I can't really afford the luxury to stand out, shaking in the rain anymore." 

Joanne looked at him sadly. "Sorry ... Yes, you're right." 

"I owe you, though," Tom admitted. “For bringing her into my life.”

"Really?" Joanne asked. "Huh, and all because I wanted to go out with Harrison." 

Tom laughed after coughing. "Yes, thanks to those blue eyes." 

"And that blond hair," Joanne said. 

Tom looked down. "You ... your sister ever mentioned some of my hair?" 

"Why would I do it?" Joanne asked. 

"I don't know ... I don't know," Tom cleared his throat. "Well, I hope you didn't like it for that." 

Joanne avoided her gaze, knowingly. “Oh, no, she… she liked you for you.” 

“I'm… debating,” admitted Tom. "There's these ... Cold caps," Tom bit his lip. “To minimize hair loss.” 

“Right,” Joanne sighed. “And do you want to wear them?” 

“Dunno, they said it can be really painful but, well, I won't be the prince charming with amazing hair but…” 

“And you need it?” Joanne pushed. 

"My hair?" Tom laughed. "I ... I guess?" 

"For what?" 

"I dunno, my happily ever after," Tom joked. “There's never been a bald prince.” 

“And there never really was a prince with cancer and a princess with anxiety,” Joanne spoke, clearly. Tom wasn't sure if her wording was what I needed to hear, he  had started to refer to it as' the c-word '. "And yet." 

"And yet," Tom admitted. "I ..." 

Joanne smiled. "You know, a lot of things happen after a conventional Happily Ever After, life is more than that," she said. 

"It doesn't always work out," Tom nodded. 

"It's because it's not the end," Joanne told him. "Not really." 

And it wasn't. And it was impossible. And neither of them had called the other, because they still had to meet. Tom was far from doing it, but he was in London and going to the places where he would believe Y/N would be found. She was never there 

How easy it was to live in the fantasy of his summer, and how difficult it was now to be in that cold London. 

Real life was not like that romantic comedy they had lived in. Less now in rainy London. Tom was going to the chemos and little by little the light he had found in the summer was fading. His hair fell and his dark circles grew, his skin paled. 

An effect of chemotherapy, Tom said, was to look like a zombie. Besides, he saw others around him, fading away, but with hope. 

Nikki and Tom lived in an old apartment they had rented, Nikki hadn't told him to whom it belonged. His brothers also went to see him, they took turns. Sometimes everyone came. Paddy liked to spend time with Tom, alone. 

Jared went to visit him one day. It was like talking with an old friend, for the first time Tom didn't see him with such contempt and Jared seemed genuinely worried. 

Haz would go visit him several times too. Even Joanne appeared from time to time, but not Y/N. 

Tom was returning to London and at each visit, he intended to speak to her, he never did. And he didn't understand why she didn't look for him either.

On one of his many visits to the hospital, he had a recurrence. His mother told him that several of his friends had come to visit him while he was unconscious. He would have sworn he had seen Y/N beside his bed at the hospital. 

Tom was an idiot. He had to call her. Who does not speak to who is possibly the love of his life? Tom was in a crisis. Because everything was still blurry. And he didn't have any strength. Another side effect. See yourself becoming what you did not want to be. 

But it was for a good thing, right? 

It's stressful, isn't it? Knowing that he lived something extraordinary and that he was now someone who no longer radiated light. He had no colors. Tom did not speak. He did not sing and when he returned, he did not want to surf. 

Days after relapse around summer, Lex had gone to visit him in London. 

"Do you remember when we came a few years ago?" She asked. 

Tom just nodded. 

"I want that, Tom," Lex admitted. "That light you had, all golden, no ..." 

Tom looked at her. 

"I don't mean with me, I know you wouldn't be happy," said Lex. "But yes ... I do want you to be." 

"Be what?"

"Happy." 

And that week ... that same week was his birthday. He could go home and have a party, pretending everything was fine. Another summer pretending. 

On one of those days when Tom just felt cold, even though summer had come again, because it does get harder, he was staring at the ceiling of that old apartment they lived in. It was his birthday, His mother was not there, he had gone to God knows where, he supposed to buy him a cake. His mother did that, he supposed, to forget all this. It was raining, as always. London always seemed to adorn his sad days with rain. Tom was fed up, he had become someone he didn't want to be with, and what else could he do? He was always alone with his thoughts. 

He heard how they knocked on the door. Tom sighed and eagerly approached. 

"Who's there?" 

"Someone who's interested in some surfing puns," a warm voice called from the door. 

Tom opened it quickly and saw her, with a full bag, and a shy smile. She had certain raindrops around. 

"Y/N," he murmured. 

"Is it ... a good time?" She asked. He let her in while she hugged the bag. "I came to ... I came ... Well, I, I know you wanted time, but ... Your mother called me and then," she smiled delicately, while she looked at him sadly. 

"I ..." 

"No, no, I know," she looked at him. His hair had fallen, his eyes were dark and his skin paled. "I ... brought you this," he said as Tom sat down. She handed the bag over and he looked at it, shells. “They're yours.” 

“What?” He stared at her hands, full of paint. It was a weird parody of his own hands, full of bruises. 

“They're the ones you gave me at the beginning of the summer, last year,” she reminded him. 

"Oh, they were a gift," Tom chuckled. “They're yours…” 

“No, no, look at them, see? I painted them, ”she told him as she took one out, showing him the colours. 

He smiled. "Thank you." And for the first time, he had smiled in a long time, genuinely. And the colour on his cheeks had returned. 

"Happy birthday," she told him, with a small smile. 

And Tom was struggling not to throw himself into her arms. But he only replied with a simple, "Thanks." 

She looked at him. "Hey, hey, I .." She cleared her throat. “I came here because I wanted to take you out.” 

“Out.” 

“I enjoy your company, I've missed you, and really, you're such a mess, you need some sun,” she said, quoting the exact words Tom had used the summer before. He smiled. 

"Really, Y/N?" He asked her. 

"Really, let's go have an anti-date in London, my style this time, alright?" She grinned. “I want to show you my secret place in London, and… who knows?” 

“I… I can't really…” Tom coughed. 

“Tom, c'mon.” 

“Fine.” 

And he put on a jacket. He didn't know very well how to act in front of someone he had already seen the stars with. How were they supposed to go from being someone who loved to two strangers? 

But, the moment they got into the blue jeep, everything was forgotten, they talked like they did in the summer and although Tom sometimes had to take time to breathe, he was still the same. And Tom felt how she, with her words, was painting on him again, but she didn't paint a storm this time, she painted a clear blue sky. Y/N had changed, she looked free, happy. 

"So, your ... secret place?" Tom asked as soon as they arrived at an old place, it was an old building, winged from an old coffee shop and a clothing store. 

"Yep." 

"Are you kidnapping me?" Tom asked. 

"I should, honestly, that's how I'd make sure you're not leaving me this time," Y/N joked. 

Tom laughed. "I ..." 

"No, no, I don't want to hear it, it's a new summer now, okay?" She told him. 

He walked inside and looked at him, there really wasn't much, it was a single room, white with some drawings of Y/N hanging here and there. There was a table in the centre and two chairs. The place was a bit disastrous, there were canvases, some painted, some blank, paint on the floor, easels around the place. Y/N lit some candles. 

“And what’s this place?” 

“My gallery,” confessed Y/N. "Well, it will be one day, it’s my studio… Gallery, my..Everything, my room is upstairs." 

Tom smiled. "I see you did well." 

“This old place?” She laughed. Y/N smiled sadly, shrugging. "No ... not exactly, I missed you, I still do," she confessed.

Tom approached her, cupping her cheeks “Missed you too.” 

“But I understand, you know? I think it was good to clear my life, sort it out. ”She walked around the place. "Well, everything is better." 

Tom looked at her. Things had cleared up for him too, he needed Y/N's light. 

He approached one of the drawings. A lighthouse. 

“They clear the path,” she said as she watched him look at her drawing. “For the lost ones.” 

“Always romantic,” Tom chuckled.

"Me? May I remind you who climbed a bloody Ferris wheel in the carnival? ”She laughed. 

Tom sighed, he wouldn't be able to pull any stunt like that anymore. Tom walked over to the chair, and sat down, to catch his breath. 

“I was madly in love with you,” he reminded her. 

“You're using past tense I see,” she looked down. “I still… well, I still love you, Tom.” 

He didn't answer. 

“That's the worst thing you've heard, isn't it? That's possibly the worst thing I could've said, ”she closed her eyes, and sat across him. “If something goes wrong here and I have to sell out the place… because it'll be yet another thing that reminds me of you—“

“What?” 

“Oh, it's going to sound stupid and cliché, but… I've had to hide everything that reminded me of you, ”he said. "That's why ... I haven't gone to town, nor ... I don't know, if something goes wrong here, I'll have to sell it because it will be another reminder of our 'what if." 

"Pretty stupid of us to break up," Tom murmured. 

She laughed, throwing her head back. “You were the one who suggested it… No, let me rephrase that, you were the one who broke up with me.” 

“I was… I am very stupid,” he admitted.

"Ah, so for that you use present tense," she looked down, whispering to herself. 

Tom closed his eyes. “I didn't-” 

“No, hey, it's alright,” she dedicated him a smile, “I assume it's been hard.” 

And Tom didn't know why he didn't want to admit that he still loved her. He guessed it was the face she had made when she first saw him, scared, or disappointed. Or a combination of both, because he guessed she didn't expect to see him so destroyed, and he guessed that he wasn't the guy whom she had fallen in love with. And things would only get worse from there. 

Tom avoided her gaze. “You assume or you know?” 

“Both, I guess, I can tell,” she agreed as she looked at his hand. "You're not being your particular way of being annoying." 

Tom laughed. “I'm sorry, now, I'm a different kind of annoying.” 

“Very annoying, Tommy.” 

He cleared his throat. "Well, and ... How are you doing with Ken?" 

"Ken?" 

"Marcus, sorry, he’s so perfect." 

She rolled her eyes. “I'm not dating him.” 

“Huh, alright.” 

“Not right now, at least,” she admitted. 

"Oh." 

"Went out for a few dates," she continued. “Really boring, you know.” 

Tom cleared his throat. "Right." 

"Have you ... seen anyone?" 

Tom scoffed. “I don't exactly think I'm datable right now.” 

She watched him. "You never were," she teased. “You were a walking cliché only willing to break my heart,” she reminded him. "Yet." 

Tom smiled. “No, but…” 

“You're still a work of art, Tommy.” And she meant it. They looked into each others eyes but before he could say anything, she looked away. “So… Uh, this is an anti-date, remember? I… ordered some burgers. ”

Tom smiled, slightly. 

“So, what's it gonna be this summer?” She asked him. “Another hoax? Friendship? What cliché- ” 

“ Y/N. ” 

She chuckled. "C'mon, I'm just trynna ..." 

Tom smiled. “I know.” He looked around. “So how did you buy this place?” 

She cleared her throat. "Sold the Aston Martin." 

His eyes widened. “What?” 

“Well, it's… kind of pawned,” she admitted. “I… sold it to Jared and he promised to sell it back, eventually.” 

Tom smiled. "Oh, alright," He looked down. “So, your gallery, huh? When are you going to…” 

“Open it? ”She laughed. “I would love to know, too, I only have a few… Paintings but I haven't… Really.” 

He raised his eyebrows. “What?” 

“Well, I told you, I've had to hide everything that reminded me of you and well… The paintings I had--” She cleared her throat. “Well, they kind of all revolve around last summer.” 

He stood up and scooted his chair beside her. 

"Everything comes back to last summer," he admitted. 

She looked at him. “You know, I'm not asking for much,” she started. “I just… I don't need you to say you love me back,” she said. “I just… Let me love you, you know?” 

Tom reached out for her hand and intertwined their fingers. 

"Love," He whispered. 

She closed her eyes. "No, no, don't you call me love if ... If ..." She gulped. “I ... Look, I just want to love you, alright? Let me be around but if you're not going to ... To let me in, don't- ”

And he kissed her. Because he had missed her lips this whole year, and he knew that he needed her to be around. Because one love shouldn't last only a summer. A love like theirs should last a lifetime. And though he didn't have any strength left he managed to mould their lips together, creating a sunset. And it tasted just like the end of June, and he didn't want to stop. 

"I love you, too," he whispered against her lips. 

She sighed and smiled, resting her forehead against his. “That's the worst prelude to a kiss I've ever had.” 

He laughed. “Why?” 

“Really? You're asking why? Thomas! ”She rolled her eyes. “I thought you didn't — you didn't like me anymore.” 

“I never liked you,” he joked. "I just loved you." 

She pushed him away, jokingly. “You are such a complicated mess.” 

He leaned against the table. “I've become more of a mess while we were apart.” 

“I've been around,” she confessed. “I haven't exactly been… absent.” Tom knew that. “Sometimes I was with your mom, I went and talked to her in the hospital, I wanted… I wanted to know that you were fine.” 

Tom kept listening to her. 

"And last week..." she closed her eyes. “Sorry to do this about me, but I went to see you because… because we all believed we would lose you, and I thought… what would I do without you? I couldn't be away any longer. ” 

“ I've been drowning without you, Y/N, ”Tom said. “I've been… feeling blue.” 

“That's my thing, silly,” she chuckled but kissed him again. “I'm here to save you, now.” 

“But now I feel calm,” he continued. 

Tom hugged her. 

“Soon you'll get better, Tom. You're healing. ” 

Tom smiled. Although he didn't know if it was true, he believed her. And maybe it was a way to fool himself, like last summer, play pretend. He took her in his arms and walked to the centre of the room. And so without music, they started dancing. There were many reasons why Tom shouldn't have gone, but he decided to dance with her. Because they had run out of things they could say, and Tom fell again to her. 

She gently began to whisper the lyrics of that song they both loved, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. They merged together, and their shadow did not let the incandescent candlelight see the street from the small window. 

The blue moon and the golden sun had come together to form an eclipse. And it was beautiful, and although it was dark, they glowed. 

They were the necessary antidote to make everything stop being blurry. And at that moment, Tom didn't feel it was just medicine. 

And it was a decision. Because that's love, deciding to be together, in addition, Tom had made a promise that he would love her until her last breath. And he wouldn't break it. Because despite having little hope, there was a little light. It was like a lighthouse in the distance. And they would be together, because one summer is not enough. Because whenever they were together, no matter how dark, how agitated the sea was or how dense the storm was, everything became… clear.

Even if time ran out. 

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[nev3rfound]

bringing you together : b.b

brief summary: being in military therapy sessions due to injuries from war and suffering with ptsd you become friends with sam. whilst there, he meets your therapy dog and learns more about you. the more he gets to know you, the more he thinks how well you’d get on with bucky.

word count: 2.3k requested: yes, by @tearsforhan girl i love this idea so much (changed a few details, but I hope you like the outcome) warnings: mention of ptsd, war, violence (but it is fluffy I promise)

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website know it isn’t me. all rights reserved. - thank you to everyone who helped regarding the wattpad situation, you’re all amazing)

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** permanent taglist **

Walking into the building, you keep Wilfred by your side. He walks when you walk, stops when you do and comforts you when you need it most. You never had a dog like Wilfred in your life, but that being said, you never needed one like him until now. 

“Morning, Y/n,” The receptionist, Marcus smiles and you smile back, pausing as he stands up and walks over holding the same glass jar he always approaches Wilfred will. “and Wilf, of course.” He chuckles, watching as Wilfred sits and accepts the treat. 

“Is everyone in yet?” You question as you look down the long corridor, wandering how many have wandered in already, had a chance to talk and explain why they’re here. 

Marcus shakes his head. “Not everyone, a few regulars have gone away for a few days on a retreat.” He explains and you raise an eyebrow. “Yeah, something to do with helping themselves by being away from everything.” 

You let out a soft sigh. “I wish.” You mumble before heading down the corridor, Wilfred by your side as you tense up. A small lick crosses the back of your hand, and you smile down to your golden retriever. You tickle his head with a soft smile. “Good boy.” 

Pushing open the double doors, Wilfred speeds up to avoid his fluffy tail catching. You look around at the large room dotted with chairs. Most are neatly arranged in a circle, but recently they’ve been trying to make it more social and less confrontational. 

Immediately, you find him sat down staring at a jigsaw puzzle. His brows are furrowed together, and his head is resting in his hand. “You seriously struggling with a 200 piece jigsaw?” You chuckle, taking the seat opposite him.

Slowly, Sam lifts his head up and flashes you a smile. “It’s complex.” He mumbles, trying to hide his irritation at the Lady & The Tramp puzzle. “All I’m trying to find is Lady’s eyes, and I swear they aren’t here.” He sighs deeply and watches you scan the area. 

You reach out, placing the piece into place and raise an eyebrow to Sam. “And here I thought your speciality was being observant.” You joke and Sam fake laughs.

“Funny, Y/l/n.” He comments before abandoning the puzzle and rises to his feet. “How was yesterday?” 

Biting on your tongue, you try to hold back the need to cry. You came here for help, not to be thrown backwards. In the time Sam has known you, become your friend he knew it all. Both of you lived through similar experiences, you had lost, been defeated and thrown to the ground with nothing to come back from. 

When you came home, you were plagued with nightmares which lead to insomnia. The person you became wasn’t who you were, instead, she was someone you were deeply afraid of knowing and forced yourself to hideaway. 

Then you met Sam at your second session. He was kind, and he could recognise the resistance in you. How you were holding your arms around your body, wearing baggy clothing to hideaway. It was obvious signs, that, and the way you flinched at the slightest of sounds. 

Zoning back in, Sam patiently waits. It was something he realised he had to do with you, have a level of patience to wait for you to return to the room from your thoughts. “It went okay.” You truthfully admit. “Could’ve been worse, but they say Wilfred is making it easier.” You lower your head, smiling down to your dog who wags his tail. 

“I can definitely tell he helps,” Sam speaks up, seeing the dog sit by your side, leaning against your leg. “you seem calmer.” 

“I don’t feel it.” You laugh lightly, cracking a smile to your friend as you hear the doors opening and the presence in the room changing. 

“Showtime.” Sam mutters and you follow him, taking a seat in the circle as Tom takes the seat in the front, holding the same book before he clears his throat.

You often zone out from Tom when he talks about his feelings, why everyone is here together for today's session. You all have similar stories. All military serviceman with hardships and suffering from mental health issues post service. 

Sometimes you listen to the odd story, those who suffer from phantom limb pain, PTSD like yourself or severe anxiety. Everyone can relate, and many often input their suggestions such as medication, smoking, alcohol or exercise. As someone who tried all of these, you wish you could speak up and advise none of them. 

The session carries on as it always does. As it comes to an end, you’re often met with sunken faces offering coffee or biscuits. At this point, you and Sam both decline the offer of terrible coffee and wander down the road to a small cafe. 

“You didn’t feel like sharing today?” Sam questions as he sips his drink across from you, watching as your fingertip swirls around the latte glass. 

Lifting your eyes up, you shake your head. “Nothing to share.” You mutter and hear Sam sigh. “What? Like I’m going to tell them all about visiting my old base yesterday. That wouldn’t help.” You comment before picking the glass up and sipping at the foam. 

Sam leans forward. “Do you talk to anyone else about anything?” He questions and you raise an eyebrow to him. “Any other friends?” 

Slowly, you shake your head. “All my friends are gone.” You painfully remind yourself. “Just me and Wilfred now.” You glance down at your dog who lies by your feet, fast asleep. “Not much I can do to change that, and as I’m told, I am one of the lucky ones.” Even if you don’t feel it. 

The two of you sit in silence, listening to the faint tune play on the radio as you hear the coffee machine whirring. Here, you felt comfortable as you knew all the sounds. There wasn’t anything to surprise or trigger you in any way, it all was known and knowing brought comfort and ensured safety at all times. 

*

Another day had passed by, and you were back in the bleak building. It didn’t do anything to help itself or look anyway appealing to someone new. To you, it was part of your newly adapted routine. Go to therapy, cry after therapy with Wilfred and try and avoid another panic attack. 

It wasn’t the best routine, but it was all you could do for now.

Except, when you pushed the doors open with Wilfred by your side, you noticed your seat opposite Sam was occupied. 

Wandering over, you smiled to yourself as Wilfred paused. “Well if this is what being replaced feels like, I can’t say I’m a fan.” You speak up, and Sam lifts his head up and smiles to you.

The person in your seat rises to his feet, long dark brown hair covers his neck before he turns to face you. Bright blue eyes lock with yours as he clears his throat. “Sorry, I’m Bucky.” He speaks quietly to you, holding out a hand you notice is entirely metal. 

Thinking nothing of it, you accept the handshake. You’ve met hundreds of people since you left the service, all with limbs made of differing material. But what you do notice is how the design varies from those you’ve previously seen made of metal, this looks high tech. 

“I was just joking,” You apologise. “I’m Y/n. Take it you’re a friend of Sams?” 

Bucky nods to you, looking down to see Wilfred wagging his tail at him. “And who’s this?” He asks, holding his flesh hand out as Wilfred sniffs it, ensuring he’s alright to greet.

“This is Wilfred. He’s my therapy dog.” You explain, motioning it’s okay for Bucky to meet him. “He won’t bite, kinda the opposite of his job.” You chuckle, and Sam can see you being less tense for the first time in weeks. 

Kneeling in front of him, Bucky tickles Wilfred underneath his chin. You watch with a gentle smile before glancing over at Sam who sends you a knowing look. “What?” You question to Sam who simply shrugs his shoulders.

“Nothing, guess I forgot what that smile looked like.” He joked with you as Bucky stood back up, brushing some of the golden fur from his black jacket. “Anyway, we better get a seat.” Sam states and turns to face you.

Tucking his hair behind his ear, Bucky holds his arm out. “You joinin’ us, doll?” He questions and you suddenly feel taken aback by his confidence. 

It’s been over a year since someone’s tried to flirt with you, but you can’t say you mind the treatment at all. “Don’t mind if I do.” You respond, accepting his arm as you take a seat between him and Sam. 

Tom takes his seat with a heavy exhale, something he has a habit of doing. You have a sense he’s a bit of an alcoholic, you know the signs and he definitely ticks most of the boxes. 

You sit back, resting your hands on your lap as Wilfred lies by your side, sat between you and Bucky. 

“I can see a few new faces today amongst ones we know.” Tom speaks up, looking around and pauses on Bucky. “You don’t have to introduce yourself, but it’s always a welcoming way to begin the session. 

Bucky clears his throat before he hesitantly stands up. “Name’s Bucky. I was a soldier, special operations.” He states, leaving out certain details that are almost impossible to fathom. 

He sits back down, and you look over to him with a small smile. His physique definitely matched special operations, and it would explain his arm with ease. 

A few more people stand up and share stories during the session, but all you can think about is the urge to walk out and leave as the adrenaline in your body starts pulsing. 

“And what about you, Y/n?” Hearing your name being mentioned, you lift your head up as Wilfred nudges his head on your leg. 

Tom wears a soft smile to you, the sort that felt overbearing. Everyone else was looking at you, watching you shift uncomfortably in your seat. “Well, I’m doing okay.” You admit, knowing the term of what is okay is variable. What feels okay to you could be torture for another. 

“That’s good, how has therapy helped you so far. We know it has been over a year since you left due to your team being injured on a mission.” Tom eloquently describes and you feel Wilfred slip under your arm as you stroke him. 

“That’s one way of putting it.” You mutter under your breath. “Well, since my team got blown up and I was the sole survivor, I can’t say it was all breezy.” You can feel the sarcasm creeping into your voice, and Sam muttering your name. “No, it’s fine.” You turn to face Sam. “This is what we’re all here for, right? To talk about it in a group, openly speak about what shit we went through.” Your voice becomes louder. “And I suffer from nightmares. I struggle to go outside in the city because every time I hear a car beep its horn I fear it’s going to be another bomb.” 

Your words hang in the air, no one speaks. 

“I, I’m sorry.” You sigh before you stand up and glance to Bucky who keeps his head down as you walk out of the room.

The doors close behind you, and you can feel your chest tightening as you slide down the wall, clutching your head between your legs as Wilfred runs off. 

You silently sob into your chest when you feel a pair of arms rest on your knees. Lifting your head up your met with those blue eyes. He remains silent but simply sits beside you letting you know if you need it, he is there for you. 

Wilfred sits on your other side as your hand remains on his fur, stroking it soothingly as tears continue to stream down your face. “I know, it’s not easy.” Bucky speaks up quietly, having learnt it’s best to keep your voice down for comfort. “And the idea of it getting any easier seems like a joke,” 

You let out a short laugh. “You’re telling me.” You mutter to him, glancing over and see how close he is, his arm now resting around you.

“But talking about it can make a difference, just let your barriers down, doll.” Bucky encourages and you shake your head.

“It’s not that easy to do you know.” You look up to him with cold eyes. “If I could flip a switch that didn’t make me feel like shit I would. If I could forget everything I, I think I’d give it a go.” Tears spill down your eyes and roll from your cheeks. You forcefully wipe them away with an aggravated sigh.

“No one ever said it would be.” Bucky tells you, something you’ve been informed countless times. But the way he says it is different, it’s on a more personal level. “I, I lost everyone I knew and myself when I was serving.” Bucky clears his throat.

You glance up at him, seeing the sadness radiating in his eyes. “I’m sorry.” You mutter to him and he nods. 

“Took me what feels like five decades to learn and accept it.” He tells you, watching as you shuffle closer into him. “We don’t accept it and carry on, Y/n,” Bucky mutters. “we learn to live with it, in whatever way we can.” 

He reaches over, wiping away a tear that falls as you rest your head on his shoulder, Wilfred moves to lie beside Bucky and you remain sat like that until you feel calm.

Unaware of the sight, Sam opens the doors quietly and looks down to see the three of you curled up together. He smiles to himself, thankful that Bucky decided to come after all. That maybe, just maybe you can help one another put the pieces back together. 

[alindakb]

Letters to my Parents - Friday 1 April 1994 - by Alinda

Friday 1 April 1994

Dear mom and dad,

You won’t believe it. They’ve sentenced him to death. Buckbeak is sentenced to be executed. Hagrid is heartbroken and Draco is outraged. He’s sure his father has bribed or frightened the Committee into it. Hermione said there will still be an appeal, but she’s hopeless. We all know nothing will really be any different then. Draco’s dad will still be there and the Committee will still listen to him.

Draco and Hermione have started researching again to help Hagrid with his case. I wish I could help them more, but Miss Davis is giving me more and more homework for therapy. Even though I tell her time and time again that I’m fine and that I don’t need her anymore. She seems to think that having Black around is making me more unstable. It really sucks. I don’t want to go and do all the work she’s giving me. I want to help Draco and Hermione so we can save Buckbeak.

And the worst part of it all is that we can’t go and see Hagrid in the evenings because of all the extra safety precautions. The only change we ever get to see him is during Care of Magical Creatures lessons. It was hard to see him that first lesson. He was numb with shock and he blames himself. He says he got all tongue-tied. Draco told him to not give up, that they will help with the appeal. Only Hagrid said it was no good, that the Committee was in Lucius Malfoy’s pocket. And that just pisses Draco off, that his father would do this. He’s been ranting about it for days now. The only way I can shut him up is by kissing him.

There is also another mystery I’m trying to solve, and that is the mystery of Hermione disappearing in thin air. She thinks we didn’t notice that we were all walking to Charms together and that Draco and I were to only once to arrive. We did cheering charms by the way, which is really fun. But the crazy thing is, that Hermione was there one minute and gone the next.

When we went to find her after class she was in the library, fast asleep with her head resting on an open Arithmancy book. We woke her up and she was all confused at first. She thought she had forgotten to go to Charms, but that couldn’t have been the case, she was right behind us until we reached the door of the Charms classroom.

We tried to tell her that she was taking on too much with all the classes she’s taking, but she wouldn’t listen to us. She just said she made a mistake and that she had to go to see professor Flitwick to say sorry. And with she just left. Draco shook his head and took Hermione’s Arithmancy book that she had forgotten and we went to grab some lunch.

Sometime after that, we had Divination and things got really weird during that lesson. We’ve started crystal balls. First I was glad that we finished palmistry because it was getting very annoying to see Professor Trelawney flinch every time she looked at my hands. The lesson started out funny with Hermione dissing Professor Trelawney for making predictions about the exams she was setting herself. Then we had to stare into the ball and clear our minds. This was very hard, I kept thinking that it was stupid. I asked Draco if he saw anything yet, and he said he’d seen how we would be making out after Quidditch practice and how he would make sure I would be all relaxed before sleep. We both laughed and Hermione let out a shout, telling us she didn’t need to know what we do beneath the sheets.

Draco and I both burst into laughter because of that and Professor Trelawney turned to us and told us we were disturbing the clairvoyant vibrations. And then she looked into our bowl. I know what was coming, that she would predict something terrible happening to me again. And sure I was right. She was telling me how the Grimm was coming my way.

It was that moment that Hermione snapped. She said something like ‘not that ridiculous Grim again’. Professor Trelawney turned to Hermione and told her she had never seen a student whose mind was so hopelessly mundane. Hermione then got up and said she gave up and left the class. She hasn’t been back in Divination since then.

And the worst part was, Brown was all like: ‘Oh do you remember that Trelawney had said something about one of us leaving us forever around Easter’ and the entire class was all impressed. But I didn’t really think about that. I was worried about the prediction Trelawney was about to make. Did she really see the Grim? Because the last thing I need is another near-fatal accident with the Quidditch final just around the corner.

The final is at the end of this month. We are up against Gryffindor and I really hope we win. Marcus has us do extra training sessions on Saturdays. But that’s fine. I like being able to fly this much, and Draco is with me on the team so we get to spend all that time together.

I’m going now, it’s getting kind of late and Draco has already fallen asleep with his head on my shoulder. I’ll write again soon.

Love

Harry James Potter.

[preeshera]

If Love Be Blind

Angsty multi-chapter love square monstrosity (you have been warned)

I would be nowhere without my lovely Beta - Bell

Read on AO3

Chapter 1

“You realize I am a doctor too, right?!” the psychologist exclaimed, flushed with anger, as he fought a losing battle to maintain his composure.

“Whatever you say, Marcus,” scoffed a man in lab coat and stormed out of the office. The doctor closed his office door harshly to hide his embarrassment.

He marched back to his desk and sat down forcefully, knocking over his favorite picture frame and breaking it into pieces. Merde. Now this. He swept the shards off his work notepad, muttering angrily.

“Not a real doctor? NOT A REAL DOCTOR? That arrogant ass!”

They underestimate you, don’t they?

What? Had someone entered his office? He looked around but the door was still firmly shut.

They ridicule you, laugh at you.

He could feel his anger bubbling up again.

No more, I say! My name is Hawkmoth, and I can give you the power to take revenge. All I ask in return is two little trinkets…

What do you think of my offer – Dr. Mind Control?

A regular cloudy Parisian afternoon found the Collège Françoise Dupont as it usually was – busy and bustling with students.

“Come on, Marinette! We’ll be late!” Alya hollered, already halfway down the corridor from the homeroom class as Marinette was trying her best to catch up.

“But Alya, are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, I didn’t know you were so passionate about the environment…” Marinette smiled at her friend sheepishly, once she finally caught her.

Alya was clearly excited, what with her near jog and all the hand waving, but Marinette didn’t really understand. Sure, the big shipment of chemicals being delivered through Parisian streets was a big deal – there was a proper protest organized and everything – but Mayor Bourgeoise assured everyone that the security was of utmost priority. Besides, Marinette mused as she ran to keep up with her excited best friend, this just didn’t seem to be the kind of topic that would get Alya this heated up.

“Of course I am passionate!” Alya declared resolutely. “Why – wouldn’t the protest be a perfect opportunity for Ladybug and Chat Noir to make an appearance?”

Aha! Voila, there it was. The true motive! Marinette sighed, but then smiled indulgently at her friend.

“Okay, okay. I mean, what are best friends for, right?”

Alya grinned cheekily and hooked her elbows with Marinette.

“Right you are Mari!”

The girls made it just in time to see the procession of several large container trucks accompanied by a queue of police cars. The gathering of protestors along the main street was a bit loud, but Marinette noted gratefully that it looked peaceful, couple of rather rude placards aside, and didn’t think anyone looked angry enough to attract Hawkmoth’s attention.

She smiled at Alya, who was snapping pictures left and right and clearly in her element. Hopefully her friend won’t be too disappointed if Ladybug didn’t show…

A loud screeching sound tore Marinette out of her reverie. She turned around with growing dread.

Of-fucking -course. She just had to jinx it.

A man hovered above the line of trucks and police cars, flying in a throne-like office chair, dressed in an outfit that looked like a real-life optical illusion, and cackling manically.

Marinette sighed and stole a quick glance to Alya. Luckily, her friend was preoccupied by the commotion. She ducked into the nearest alley and dove behind a dumpster after a quick glance around the area. She opened her purse and hissed: “Tikki, we’ve got a problem!”

The tiny red kwami looked up at her with worried blue eyes.

“What is it Marinette? What’s wrong?”

“Akuma, Tikki. Quick, spots on!”

Her transformation flowed over her in a stream of pink light and Marinette let it take over, enjoying the pleasant rush that came with Tikki’s presence surrounding her.

Disguised as Ladybug she appeared from behind the dumpster fully suited and ran back towards the street, quickly dialing Chat’s number and leaving him a message to come as fast as he could.

The akuma was wreaking havoc, though Marinette couldn’t figure out exactly how at first. The formerly peaceful protest had turned into a full-blown riot in the short while she took to transform. Marinette just couldn’t understand it. It was only once she noticed the unnatural, blood red eyes on one of the protester’s faces that it hit her – they were all being controlled!

“Well, well, if it isn’t Paris’ favorite superheroine!” The akuma screeched as he turned his attention to her. She quickly shot her yo-yo at a nearby aerial and pulled herself up on a rooftop to get away from the frenzied crowd and behind a cooling unit on the rooftop to pull out the communicator screen of her yo-yo. Chat still wasn’t picking up.

“Where are you, Chaton?” Marinette whispered to herself.

“The famous Ladybug, hiding, while the citizens of Paris are in danger? I sense some confidence issues! Tut-tut. A therapy session or two, and you’ll be right as rain!” the akuma announced as he rounded the rooftop and came face to face with Marinette.

Ugh, the suit was painful to look at. Marinette had to avert her eyes – optical illusions always gave her a headache.

“I am Dr. Mind Control, give up your Miraculous Ladybug and no one will get hurt!”

Marinette groaned. Not this spiel again. She pushed down her uneasiness and glared at the akuma. The blood red irises that met her were extra freakish, but not as freakish as the book in his hands – a therapy notepad, but pitch black with a single glowing red eye on it.

That’s it! That must be where the butterfly is hiding.

“Give up your miraculous, Ladybug, or Paris will suffer!”

“I am afraid that’s impawsible,” came a cheeky reply. The akuma spun on his chair to glare at Mari’s very own smirking partner.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” Dr. Mind Control sneered, but Chat Noir’s grin didn’t waver.

“Need a helping paw, my Lady?”

“Chaton,” Marinette groaned, but she was glad to see her partner there. Fighting akumas on her own always made her a bit uneasy. “Stay focused! The akuma is in his notepad, we need to get to it – stat!”

“Last chance, Ladybug!” The akuma threatened, obviously not happy about being ignored.

Marinette hopped up onto the air conditioning unit she previously hid behind and threw her yo-yo at the akuma’s chair. Quickly pulling herself in, she tried to knock the notepad out of his hands, but he was expecting her.

“My Lady, no!” Chat screamed as the book glowed red, ready to pull Ladybug under the akuma’s control.

She dodged.

Plummeting to the ground, she barely managed to use her yoyo and veer quickly in opposite direction in time. By the skin of her neck the vibrating beam of the akuma’s power missed her and exploded against the building behind her.

Thank kwamis for all Ladybug’s luck.

She rolled onto a different rooftop and barely got to her feet before the akuma was shooting at her again. Dodging and swerving from rooftop to rooftop Mari Ladybug completely lost sight of her partner. Only when she dodged another one of the too-close-for-comfort attacks did she realize her companion was nowhere to be seen.

“Chat, a little help?” She cast her eyes wildly all around for the black of his suit. At last she spotted him on the street underneath. Only then did Marinette realize her partner had his hands more than full. While she was dancing around dodging Dr. Mind Control’s attacks, he had to deal with the raging crowd below. Ladybug’s stomach dropped at the sight of the mass of civilians bashing the large canisters full of chemicals that were towed on the trucks below her with whatever they could find.

Merde, merde, merde, MERDE!

“I’ve got my claws full, LB!” Chat yelped as Marinette just barely dodged another black beam. This wouldn’t do.

“Lucky Charm!” She threw her yo-yo up in the air, and air crackled with power.

A soft, silky scarf landed in her out-stretched hand. What the…?

She was just about to look around for clues when a resounding clamor from below drew her attention. Chat Noir was getting overwhelmed while the civilians were getting close to damaging the cistern. She had to get down there, but the akuma with his aerial advantage was proving way too tricky. Screw it, she really needed some time to figure out her Lucky charm!

Mari could hear sirens – police, or the fire service, or hopefully both, but they were too far away to help yet. She growled in frustration as she dove in between buildings and landed on the pavement next to Chat, knocking the mind-controlled civilians to the ground.

“Thanks for the assist, Bugaboo, things were getting a bit hairy down here.” Chat grinned.

“What did I tell you about calling me Bugaboo, you alley cat?”

“Meowch, my Lady, you wound me!” Chat exclaimed theatrically, throwing his clawed hands over his heart before waving them around again, laughing at his own antics.

The bubbling laugh transformed midway out of Marinette’s mouth into a gurgled gasp. You see, the akuma did not take kindly to being ignored, and he used their distraction to his advantage. In the split-second Mari wasn’t on high alert, a beam of black light shot right by her and hit Chat square in his chest.

The smile melted off his face as his eyes turned crimson.

“Chat, NO!” Marinette screamed, but to no avail. Her friend wasn’t there anymore.

“Now, now, Ladybug. Where were we? It’s rude to run out on your doctor!”

Chat hunched menacingly, and Mari took an instinctive step back. And as if all this wasn’t enough, the people she had knocked down were starting to stir and get back up on their feet. She shot out her yo-yo and quickly pulled herself up on one of the trucks. She needed to get to higher ground, fast.

With dread, Marinette realized Chat’s claws were doing a right number on the metallic containers beside her, and while she dodged away unscathed, the truck had started to sprout leaks. The pressure in the large container caused the chemical inside to shoot out forcefully through every small opening. Dr. Mind Control laughed manically as air filled with screams of civilians hurt by the leaking chemicals. The few remaining outside akuma’s control were trying to help, but it just wasn’t enough. Ladybug looked around frantically, trying to find something to aid her. The sound of sirens was getting closer, and she hoped against hope that the sorely needed help would arrive with it.

Her earing gave a warning beep and she looked down at the silk scarf, still clutched uselessly in her hand. She had to think of something!

“Get her, Chat Noir!” the akuma commanded, but Ladybug, distracted by looking around for clues, reacted too slow. The familiar arms of her partner, now harsh and unforgiving, circled her. In one swift move Chat brought her down to the ground with a heavy slam. One of his clawed hands circled her neck while the other posed to strike.

“Unmask her.” The akuma ordered coldly.

The black aura of cataclysm surrounded Chat’s hand and Marinette yelped, casting her gaze up helplessly to catch his unseeing blood red eyes. Please. Look at me. Snap out of it. She struggled underneath him but he was too strong.

“Chat, stop it! Chaton, please! It’s me, it’s your Lady!” she begged, tears welling in her eyes against her will, as she writhed against his crushing grip.

However, her Chat was not there. The last thing she saw was a streak of black on red as pain like lightning exploded in her head. His claws came down on her face, and a burning, horrible sensation spread from her eyelids where his cataclysm first made contact.

“Get away from her you monster!” a familiar voice screamed, and with a heavy wet whoosh Chat’s weight was lifted off her. She struggled to pry her eye open. Finally, her eyelids lifted heavily. Everything was blurry and hurting, her ears were ringing, and she was dripping wet for some reason. The sirens. It must be the firefighters. Of course, Marinette thought hazily, they brought out the power hose.

“Ladybug, can you hear me? Ladybug?” Alya, sweet, beautiful Alya was clutching her by the shoulders. “Ladybug, are you – are you okay? Are you hurt?”

Her vision swam, fluttery and unclear, her world a mass of swirling black spots and pounding excruciating pain. She couldn’t answer.

“Your suit…!” Alya whispered, voice quiet and horrified like Mari had never heard it before – and when her gaze dropped to her own trembling hands she could see her bare fingertips as the ladybug suit slowly crumbled. Tikki was losing her hold on the transformation.

“Please, please hold out. I will be back.” She tried to sound brave but her voice shook.

She had to run. Diving into the nearest alley she left the sounds of struggle behind, as the fire department waged a losing battle on an akuma and a corrupted superhero. They needed Ladybug, but she couldn’t help them. Crying, she fled.

Her suit crumbled of her feet and legs as she ran. She ran as fast as she could, ignoring the growing black spots in her sight, ignoring the pain, she ran to the only place she knew she could get help. Master Fu. Marinette could feel the shreds of the suit falling off her shoulders. Her time was almost up. The familiar weight of her mask disappeared just as she came up to the door of Master Fu’s shop. She saw a bright red dot drop lifelessly into her outstretched palm. She clutched her kwami to her chest as she banged on the door, streams of hot tears running down her face.  Her whole world narrowed down to a soft fluttery pulse in her palm. Her kwami, her companion, her Tikki.

“Marinette?” The look of surprise on Master Fu’s old face was lost on the girl. His eyes ran up and down her shaking frame and widened; she looked a sight – dripping wet, crying and bloody, with shreds of spotted armor still falling down around her. “Oh child, come in.”

“Master I can’t-” Marinette sobbed. “– I can’t see…”

----

TBC

[ceciliataormina-internship]

CV new and improved! Also, Critical Evaluation of the experience

CECILIA TAORMINA

Mobile: +447476435196                              

Email: cecilia.taormina.ct@gmail.com

Website: https://ceciliataorminact.wixsite.com/mywebsite

Profile:

Attitude to listen and understand. Confidence. Positivity. That is what makes me a great employer. I like to be involved in a challenging environment where I can apply my skills and improve my knowledge around photography and art therapy.

Through the use of self-initiative, commitment and work ethic I am able to deliver a great customer service and assuring a prompted problem solving attitude. When working in a team, I have the ability to understand everybody’s needs and to find a middle ground without disrupting or compromising the integrity of the job itself; When working alone instead, I can make choices to speed up the work but still maintaining an exceptional standard for the final result.

I am very patient, energetic and willing to learn more.

Education and Qualification:  

2016-2020  BA (Hons) Photography University of Westminster, London

The Photographic Eye,  Photography from the invention to Mass Medium, Photography from Cold War to the Present, Vision and Technology, Photography for Wall, Page and Screen, The Constructed Photograph, Photography Beyond the frame, Advanced concept in Photography, Professional Practice, Professional Futures, Advanced Research Methods.

2009- 2014 University of  Languages of Genoa, Italy (English, Spanish and Arabic)

2004 -2009  Pedagogical High School (Camillo Finocchiaro Aprile, Palermo, Italy)

 Working Experience:

August 2019-Present: Support Worker At Royal Mencap Society

    Running Art Phototherapy Activities For People With Learning Disabilities

May 2019- Present: Photographer Assistant For Paul Romans

    Assisting During Video And Photo Production

March 2019-August 2019: Photography Assistant For Marcus Boyle

    Documenting Workshops, Recording Video Testimonial, Video Editing, Social Media Manager, Content Creator, Targeting And Promoting Events, Contacting Institutions, Booking Manager, Customer Service.

November 2018- Present: Main Event Photographer For Women Of Power Uk

Documenting Events And Fashion Show, Content Creator, Fashion Shoots Organizer, Video Producer.

 It Skills:

Microsoft Office Package (Intermediate)

Adobe Photoshop Cc 2017 (Intermediate)

Lightroom (Basic)

Bridge (Basic)

Adobe Premierpro (Basic)

 Admin Skills And Others:

Customer Service (Advanced)

Booking Appointment (Intermediate)

Marketing & Promotion (Intermediate)

Excel (Basic)

 Spoken Languages:

Italian (mother tongue), English (fluent), Spanish (basic)

 Reference contacts:

Raquel Mezquita +447719238848

Marcus Boyle +447506625727

Critical Evaluation

The Critical Evaluation should reflect in depth your own course-based learning and professional work-based practice. You should consider each section carefully and try to summarise and critically evaluate the learning experience. This process of self-realisation should provide you with useful insight that will be transferable to future experiences; your statements should demonstrate this understanding.

(Word count for the whole document should be between 1500 – 2000, excluding CV.)

 Work Placement and your job description

Details of the work placement, length of employment and your role and responsibilities and an outline of the tasks undertaken during the experience.

(This section is the basis of your PowerPoint Presentation / Recorded Presentation Submitted on 16th September 2019)

What fascinated me the most when I came to this country it  was the huge amount of opportunity I had to exercise my photographic practice. During my University years I became more and more acknowledged of my feelings, myself and my perception of reality. This self-discovery brought lots of emotions to the surface, some of which I worked with to create all the projects of the last three years. Without being conscious of it, I was doing art therapy. I became familiar with the existence of it – and the terminology –during a meeting with Marcus Boyle, introduced to us by Eileen. He was there to explain us how he started to work in the field. Marcus happened to be a director first and a phototherapy facilitator after, through a long personal intercourse. I approached him immediately after his talk, asking to go to one of his workshops. And this is how the journey started. He did not interview me or asked me for my CV, because he got a sense of my personality and my working attitude during the workshop where I attended as participants. On March the 3rd we met for the first time to discuss what my tasks were going to be. He wanted my help to market the workshop in a better way, so we agreed that this it was going to be my point of focus. I then helped him to update his social media contents, creating later on an account both on Instagram and Facebook called Phototherapy Workshops. My duties involved choosing the right images to post and managing the time when these were uploaded on the web, to reach as many people as possible. My tasks also involved contacting the mailing list informing people of the upcoming workshops and –a week before the event – inform them what props they needed to bring along. With the time passing by, my role started to include also the research of new venues able to give us a good price deal and offer the right space in the room, facilities included (chairs, kettles, mugs, desks, etc.) to make the workshop happen. I also helped Marcus with the creation of a video testimonial to use for fundraising purposes, which we also used to promote the workshops on social media to show people the health benefits and creative outcomes participants could gain from the experience. Another thing I helped Marcus on it was the tracking of the people/institutions we contacted or we had in mind to contact. I did this using Excel and then I shared the file with Marcus on Google Drive, to be able to upload it at any time and have it synchronized. Finally, it was my duty to take care of the booking for our last workshop together. This included having directed contact with the people who wanted to participate and sending them over the bank details. Of course all these tasks needed to be done during the preparation of the workshops. During the event itself instead, I covered a more practical role. I was in charge of giving out forms participants needed to fill up –those were meant to measure the effectiveness of the workshops and their results on people. I had to handled them a copy before and after the session to see the personal outcomes. Another important duty of mine was to photo document all the moments of interaction and co-creation between the participants.  The material it was then edited down and published on social media, creating testimonial posts. The experience lasted for 5 months and we have been seeing each other once a week face to face, but I have been working at home doing researches for him, editing or managing social media pages at least two days per week.

Audit of current knowledge, skills, values and aspirations

Discuss the strengths and weaknesses that have changed through the experience and identify your personal needs arising from the self-analysis exercises.

What I noticed about myself it was that my role evolved through the months. What it was supposed to be an assisting role, it happened to start as what I understand now being a Social Media Manager, due to the fact that I had to learn how to read the statistics given by the app and to understand how to reach as many people as I could, posting at a specific time of the day and of the week. I had to create new accounts on Instagram and Facebook detached from Marcus’ personal profiles, to make the workshops become the focal point of the account themselves. I had to evolve them into a business profile to get access to the daily statistics and I had to learn to choose the right pictures to post, the most effective and/or eye catching ones. Learning how to use the tags to connect with people from different fields it was not easy at first, but then it became almost automatic. The amount of interaction for each post grew, reaching the hype of 500 people on Facebook, which for us it was absolutely great! Another skills I improved it was time management, which it is something I believe it still can get better but it evolved way more that I could expected. Now I am able to perform better and faster, maintaining a great quality service. My confidence it is also grown a lot, which helped me to face problems such as the phone booking with venues or price agreement with owners. Last but not least, I learned how to accomplish data entry tasks, without doubting about the quality of the delivered service. I learned to keep a record of the people contacted and to work with Excel. Something that it still needs lot of improvement and I am not happy about, it is the learning outcome in matters of workshop exercises, vegetotherapy and the concepts behind of the co-creation exercises done during the sessions. As Marcus assistant I hoped to learn more about the thinking that stays behind the creation of the workshop rather than just taking care of business duties. I am sure most of it needed to be done by myself, but I hoped to gain a certain amount of knowledge at the end of the experience, which I am kind of unsure it happened. Stress under pressure is still something I am working on too,  even if I have been able to speed up with my researches to find solutions and so on, fighting with time it was not easy at all and it still is something I feel a bit stressed about. My personal needs now are still the same, but first of all the economical reward is something that stays on the top list. This work placement was unpaid, so I lost a lot of money in travel that I could not cover due to the fact that for two months I was unemployed. So right now I am focused on finding jobs where I can be paid or at least have the travel expenses covered. Feeling appreciated it is also on top of the list, due to the fact that feel needed and wanted helps me to perform better. In matters of aspirations, I still want to create a work piece out of this experience, possibly a video or a photographic exhibition with all the material I shot myself. To be able to run a workshop myself is one of my biggest aspirations at the moment, because I really could see how good I felt seeing people who were able to work with their feelings using them to make art. This is what I really want to do in life. I want to help others, learning more about yoga, mindfulness and mental health.

Contact with Professional Practitioners Reflect on the strategies you used to contact professional practitioners and how useful the contacts and your current database may be for the future. At Marcus Workshop I happened to meet another photographer who actually asked me to assist and to collaborate with him for video and photo projects. We agreed that I am going to assist him for as many times as he will need me and everything will be paid. So far, with him I earned £400 doing 2 shootings, and other 100 has yet to come as long as it is a long term project the one he signed me up for. This makes me extremely happy of course, because even though Marcus did not pay me, his workshop kind of helped me to find a paid job in the field. Another good point of the contact I made during the internship it was that I discovered a lot of charities, institutions and private practitioners who I could rely on later on my career to help me hold my exhibition or to hold my future workshops in their facilities.   Regarding the strategies of approach used to connect with practitioners and institutions, I definitely can say that a face to face introduction is more effective than a simple cold email, unless it is completely necessary to use first.

Personal Development Plan Discuss and identify the main points of your Personal Development Plan and how you may achieve your aspirations. 

The points I have to work on to achieve my aspirations are: -Understand how to create a specific concept of the workshop -Identify the right target I would love to work with (such as drug or alcohol addicted people in recovery, people with learning disability, children, young adults and so on) -Get a master in Art Therapy at the Goldsmiths University

These points set a long term goal, which can be achieved prior education ONLY. I need a certificate to be able to practice art therapy or run my own workshop, which means I still have at least the years of the Master ahead of me. But it is great anyway, because it will allow me to discover and learn more things about psychotherapy and mental health. This journey will help me to find the right place I want to work for, especially thanks to the 2 years internship the Master offers in NHS.

Critical evaluation of the experience Reflect on your learning in relation to your initial expectations of the experience and evaluate the relevance of this experience in relation to your own professional future.

The experience was very relevant for my professional future. It helped me to see what actually happens on the backstage of a workshop and how much thinking is involved and needed to be able to run everything smoothly. The final result is beautiful only if well curated. My initial expectations were very different, as long as I thought I would be involved more in the “content” part instead of the Marketing, but thanks to that I gained lots of social media skills and I improved my time managing skills. I also learned that mistakes are great and they are the only way to go out from our comfort zone and to achieve things we could never thought we were able to do. Therefore, overall, I can say that this experience it was not just great for the outcome but very inspiring and it made me become a better person. I also have to say that thanks to that, I have been able to find a paid assisting role for the Royal Mencap Society where, assisting a professional art therapist, I will work with people with learning disabilities giving them tutorial on how to make art with their camera and express their emotions. I will facilitate their emotional expression through the use of the camera and I will help them to overcome the technical difficulties.

[diedsaving-moved-blog]

FUN FACTS.

Goes through yeomen like h0gwarts goes through DADA profs. ‘fleet rumors / pop. culture gossip say it’s because of all the flings he has, but it’s really because he’s actually, surprisingly, hyper-organized ( where his command / job is concerned ) & very particular.

secret talent is playing the piano

has dyslexia & adhd -- the same kindergarten teacher who caught his adhd also suspected his dyslexia.  he was an early talker & progressed at a relatively normal rate, if only slightly below average which was chalked up to his premature birth.  it was when he started learning to read & write & had trouble doing so that it became apparent something wasn’t right. it made school frustrating because, mentally, he needed more advanced material & didn’t always get it because he often needed to take things slow because of his learning disabilities.

because of this, his writing skills were subpar throughout his academic career & well into the academy.  they still aren’t the greatest, but they’re functional.  

also, even though he’s an avid reader, it’s a lot of work for him.  but he likes reading, loves books & stories.  audio books are a blessing & he often plays them while following along with the text.  he also reads aloud.  doing so was a study tactic of his for years, & when first starting out at the academy, he was nervous to do so.

his auditory comprehension has always been in the highest percentile of his age group

was allowed to ‘graduate early’ from high school. his grades were far too good to justify kicking him out.  he was much easier to deal with in a one-on-one setting, the attention did him WONDERS ( it brought out the kind & sweet boy life didn’t give a chance to ), but unfortunately, that constant need it just wasn’t ideal in a school setting.

his criminal record ( which includes numerous accounts of aggravated assault, possession, DUI / DWIs, breaking & entering, public indecency, resisting arrest, etc. ) has been sealed by the ‘fleet.

there has only, ever been one therapist he’s responded well to.  he’s typically smarter than anyone who gets sat in front of him, but she was one of the very few who wasn’t daunted by it.  she was only starting out in her career when they were first introduced after tarsus, & there sessions were going ( relatively ) well when she got a job offer she couldn’t refuse & took it.  they fell out of touch, he stopped going to / taking therapy seriously, & it was a complete coincidence that he found himself sitting across from her after going through 3 - 4 therapists after the khan / marcus / pike’s death debacle.

has never been in a car / other motor vehicle accident.  he’s a good driver.

has glasses & occasionally wears them in lieu of contacts, but never on the bridge or to formal functions, etc.  extensive medicinal allergies prevent him from undergoing treatment to correct his vision.

each year, 5-10 of his allotted spots for assigning new academy graduates to his crew are only awarded after initial assignments have been doled out. they’re then given to students who wanted starship placement, but were overlooked for one reason or another.  he takes the kids who weren’t wanted, because he knows they’ll often be the ones who work the hardest to prove themselves.

secondary choice was engineering -- he’s dabbled in it his whole life, even worked as a mechanic for a bit.

contemplated a professional hockey career solely because it was an excuse to fight

is a pro at painting nails.

has always looked out for the kids being bullied

he’s actually a really good & patient teacher.  he was an assistant instructor in advanced hand-to-hand, and during the aftermath of khan, he did some teaching at the academy. it was one class -- an upper level command course that he felt awkward leading due to the fact he wasn’t too much older than many of the cadets, but he managed to find his footing & it was a really good confidence building exercise since he was under serious doubt about his ability to return to & command the enterprise again.

he can sleep anywhere, but occasionally listens to white noise to help fall asleep. especially when they’re grounded anywhere for any given length of time.  usually the dull thrum of ship’s engines does the trick when everything else fails.

wants to write a tell-all autobiography & has bits drafted.  transparency is important to him, & he’s an incredibly honest person, but putting it all out in the open is daunting, despite the fact he’s starfleet’s posterboy & there’s already so much about him already out there.

unless it involves another person or it’s harmful to him / his career, he hardly ever goes out of his way to correct any rumors that float around about him. if people want to talk shit / make something ridiculous up, fine.  he’s got bigger fish to fry.

[socialattractionuk]

How Reading The Gulag Archipelago Can Help Overcome Your Fears With Women (Podcast Transcript)

You can find the original article at http://www.socialattraction.co.uk Connect with us Google+

Okay, welcome back. On today’s episode, we’re going to be looking at a book titled The Gulag Archipelago. Now this book was written by an author called Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and is recounting his experiences living in Russia between 1918 and 1956. This is the exact time that Russia moved into a communist government. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “How is this book relevant to helping me attract more women?”.

Well actually, what I found from reading this book is the, because Solzhenitsyn lived in such a difficult time in Russian history where being sent to prison really was a truly horrendous event. He came up with some amazing philosophical or even psychological lessons to help him to get through these difficult periods. And what I found is that these lessons are not only extremely relevant to us today, but they can really help us to get better results with women by taking better-directed actions with a philosophy that I’m just about to outline.

Now, similarly to the way that Marcus Aurelius Meditations lead to the founding of the stoic philosophy, I believe that some of Solzhenitsyn principles, although they have been touched across many different areas since, are truly amazing.

Now, in this episode, I’m going to be discussing three concepts. Firstly, I’m going to look at how acceptance can cure our minds of fear and this can range from accepting that we’re going to go and approach a girl, through to accepting that a relationship is over. But acceptance is really the keyword here. The second thing we’re going to be looking at is why asking ourselves the following question can alleviate trauma and that questions is, what can I own up to? And again I’ll be going into more detail on that but that one was a big one for me personally.

And finally, I’m going to be recounting or sorry, explaining the differences between a relative truth and an absolute truth. And that one is specifically for guys who are struggling with making that initial approach with women or also when they’re in an interaction and they don’t feel like it’s going well. So, let’s just jump straight in and talk about how acceptance can cure our minds of fear. Now, the reason why this came up in Solzhenitsyn’s book is because there was a priest at the time who was in hiding for eight years. And you could imagine that you know, if you get caught in this time you’re going to be thrown into prison, you’re going to be tortured, you’re going to get sentenced to in-between 10 to 25 years in really horrible environments right.

So, you would imagine that you would do all that you can not to be captured. And after eight years this priest finally got captured. And my first thought was, “Oh god, he’s obviously going to be rather upset as you would be” but actually this priest started singing and praising and being really happy, which I thought was a little bit strange.

But then when you begin to think about it this guy had been living his life in a permanent state of fear for eight years. And what Solzhenitsyn was saying is that you know, it’s the fear that kills you not the actual acceptance of the situation that’s going on.

And I was thinking, “My God, how relevant is this to you know, all areas of our life but specifically to meeting women”. You know, how many of us on a daily basis see an attractive girl that’s walking past us on the street and we go “Do I approach her, do I not, the fears there” and it’s like you know, we, we don’t know what to do. If you can accept that fear in that moment, yeah okay, this is a fear, I’m accepting this is a fear, you’re then able to act in spite of it.

Whereas in my experience of doing these, these training courses is that we typically tend to stick our head in the sands and just don’t admit it’s a problem or see an attractive girl and it doesn’t even enter our consciousness to even think about approaching her. You know, so in that vein the first step is like you know, hang on a minute, yes there is a problem here, I am scared of doing this.

Once you accept you’re scared of doing things then your mind will start focusing on what you can do to overcome it. And it’s amazing because I see this all the time in my training courses.

I have men come to my courses that 20 or even 30 years they’ve been fearful of approaching girls, and you can just see, you know after they’ve approached their first girl when they see how easy it is, you just see how life-changing it is for people.

You know, one fear can hold you back from so many different areas of your life. You know and this is why I’m so passionate about coaching and really specifically helping people overcome fears. So, when Solzhenitsyn was discussing this priest it really hit home with me. You know, it’s the fear that really affects you not the acting at that point.

This actually brought me on to the second point, which I wanted to discuss, which is asking ourselves the question, “What can I own up to?”. Now again, when I read about the priest living in eight years, you know, and living his life in fear, my mind wandered because I did a meditation straight after reading it.

And I asked myself an interesting question, I thought, “Okay, well, you know if I’m running from fear you end up lying, not telling the truth, trying to manipulate situations so that you know, you don’t have to face up to these fears”.

So I thought, “Well what happens if I ask myself what can I own up to?”. And I tell you what, it was an amazing experience because all of these memories came up from when I was three years old up to things that happened you know, up to three or six months ago where I’d actually been if I’m being honest lying to myself.

You know, a situation had arisen and I wanted to maintain that I looked a specific way to people. This can be down to being five years of age and you end up lying and manipulating the situation and not owning up and facing the truth.

And what I found is that this tangled web of lies, even over stuff that’s so irrelevant I mean one of mine was (laughs) is funny actually, one of mine was just taking a Spider-Man toy home from school and then trying to lie and explain to my parents where it came from. And you know, I’d forgotten about this for however many, over, over 20 years I’d forgotten about that story.

And that memory just came flashing up and I’d realised this is still affecting me today. So in my own mind I admitted, “Okay, what can I own up to? What have I done that I’ve lied about that I no longer to be, no longer need to be scared about?” And the meditation probably lasted about an hour and I came across so many different memories.

And I guess the important thing here is that you know, if you can truly illuminate these things and be willing to face up to them, they can’t harm you anymore.

And I certainly off the back of that have done a series of meditations looking more in detail into that question. And I can tell you that it’s had a, a fundamental impact on my psychology. I feel like I’m freer to say my mind to people. I’m freer to discuss things because I don’t have that fear of if I say something someones going to come back at me.

I feel less shame in my life, which is interesting. I only really came across the concept of shame during a therapy lesson, sorry a therapy sessions I had after my car accident years ago. And that brought up loads of shame and I shouldn’t have done this but just owning up to it really got rid of that bit and honestly I feel so much more relaxed.  So that’s a great question to ask yourself, what can I own up to in my life?

And the final thing I want to discuss in this podcast is the difference between a relative truth and an absolute truth and how this can help us in our lives.

Now I’m really at my infancy of understanding the difference between a relative truth and an absolute truth. But so far my understanding is that an absolute truth is, is completely factual, okay. There’s no room for misunderstanding. Whereas a relative truth is something that is true to you, so it’s relative to you in that moment.

Now, a cast-iron example of this is I’ll see one of my clients talking to a girl who’s clearly giving him signals that she’s attracted to him, yet he’ll leave the conversation early, come back and say, “Nope, she didn’t like me”, even though I can see that she’s giving off (laughs) biological signals that she does. And because to him, because women have never paid him much attention, relatively speaking she wasn’t attracted to him.

And I find this concept quite interesting ’cause I guess that the way to get from a relative truth to an absolute is to do research.

To actually find out you know, what is it that you’re trying to establish and then look for absolute truths. You know it’s an absolute truth that you know, typically women that are playing with their hair and standing with their legs crossed are giving off signals that they’re attracted to you because they’ve got an excess of adrenalin in their body. So playing their hair is a good way of, of them showing it. And also standing with their legs crossed shows they’re not trying to run away too quickly.

So when you educate people away from the relative of, oh god she’s definitely doesn’t like me to the absolute of, you know women that are doing these things are typically finding you attractive. You know, your confidence can just grow tenfold. So, we decided to push this a little bit further actually.

I did a course last weekend in London and a good friend of mine came out with me, went out for a few drinks to celebrate the success of the event afterwards. We decided that we were going to just tell the truth to every girl that we spoke to that evening. No holds barred. If they ask us a question they’re going to get the truth.

And I tell you what, first of all, it was really funny because when you speak the truth with no holds barred typically people don’t, they don’t believe you. They think you’re joking (laughs). Whereas, that in itself is quite funny. You see, you know you’re just being truthful, people think that you’re just you know taking the mick a little bit. So that was interesting.

Second of all, it gets rid of your previous conditioning if you decide to tell the truth. So the guy that I was with has learnt to, like we all have, learnt to speak and communicate in a specific way as to not offend people. And when you put the apex of absolute truth or telling the truth to the front of your consciousness it irradiates all of your previous conditioning.

So it’s almost like allowing this guy to just say what he wanted to. And he was like a different person honestly. He was talking to loads of different people, telling people as it was what he thought. The first girl that he ended up speaking to was just into him straight away which is something that he hadn’t experienced using this strategy and the best thing about it was like, you know you’re just telling the truth. If you have the confidence to just tell the truth it was truly remarkable.

As I say this is really the infancy of my understanding of this area but one of the questions the girls asked him is, “Do you fancy me?” And normally I would advise that you don’t answer that question and flirt a little bit and he just said: “Yeah, I do”. Held eye contact and was just direct with him and obviously they ended up kissing soon afterwards.

But that was a really interesting part of development because you know when you speak the truth to other people other things need to happen. You start telling the truth to yourself a little bit more too.

Because if you’re you know, putting yourself out there and speaking truth to people, you can’t be lying to yourself at the same point because it’s never going to come across the same way.

So I think something which I’m going to be exploring further throughout these podcasts is definitely looking at how we can get better at telling ourselves the truth in our lives. Amm, so that’s really what I wanted to discuss in this episode. As I said it’s a little bit left field. The book is called The Gulag Archipelago. It’s split into three separate segments.

Currently, I’ve only read the first segment. It’s a very heavy read. I’d recommend that listeners of this show give the book a read because it really is a fascinating book. And bear in mind the concepts which I’ve covered over the episode. So I will catch you tomorrow for the next episode.

  Listen to The Gary Gunn Show Podcast #2 – How Reading The Gulag Archipelago Can Help Overcome Your Fears With Women



  Want to ovecome your fears with women? – View our upcoming courses here

[hoperays-song]

Johnny’s On Twitter Concerning His Dad Again

[cristinajourdanqp]

The (Maybe Not So) Definitive Guide to Cold Therapy

Cold is really catching these days. Aubrey Marcus, whom I recently filmed a nice podcast with, was asked about his winning daily behaviors on another show. The very first thing he mentioned was “exposure to cold.” His practice is finishing his morning shower with a three-minute stint at full cold setting. He mentioned the hormonal benefits but also the mental edge he gets from psyching up and accepting the challenge instead of wimping out. He also cited research that people who engage in therapeutic cold exposure catch fewer upper respiratory infections. Hence, like many other elements of conventional wisdom, the old wives tale is backwards. Of course, we are talking about acute and optimal duration cold exposure, not prolonged exposure to elements that weaken your resistance and contribute to immune disturbances.

As with keto, there’s much more to be learned in this burgeoning field before we can operate in definitive (hence today’s title). Today, however, I’ll expose you (the first of more double entendrés to be on the lookout for) to important concepts and best practices so that you may enjoy the vaunted benefits and avoid some of the negative effects of going about cold exposure wrong.

Cold therapy has been around forever as in the athletic world—a central element of injury treatment and post-workout recovery. Ice packs wrapped on aching joints are a staple of every high school, college and professional team locker room. The iconic stainless steel cold whirlpool has been a post-workout destination of professional ballers for decades, and Olympic distance runners have inspired millions of recreational runners to dutifully wade into a cold stream, lake or pool after long runs to soothe and revitalize inflamed muscles. In recent years, whole body cryotherapy clinics have exploded in popularity, making grand promises in return for $45-$90 (the latter in NYC) for a three-minute session in a chamber blowing air at 190-255 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. I haven’t tried cryo, but let’s just say I’ve heard it stings.

In writing Primal Endurance, my co-author Brad Kearns and I studied the cold therapy subject extensively to convey some best practices in the recovery chapter of the book. For this article, we also consulted with Dr. Kelly “K-Starr” Starrett—thought leader on all things mobility, rehab, prevention, and performance (check MobilityWOD.com or Becoming A Supple Leopard for cutting edge strategies that will keep you moving optimally and avoiding breakdown and injury) and reviewed numerous articles, which you will find linked or at the end of the post.

It appears that while cold therapy can offer some proven benefits for inflammation control, enhanced cellular, immune, and cognitive function, and recovery from exercise, numerous elements of cold therapy claims seem to be hype, notably the expensive cryochambers (cold water is better) and the potential of cold exposure to reduce body fat (cut grains and sugars instead!) Worse, the prominent cold therapy practice of post-exercise immersion into cold water or application of ice appears to be counterproductive, compromising potential fitness gains generated by hard workouts.

What NOT To Do…

The most emphatic suggestion made by K-Starr is that cold exposure should happen far away from the stimulus of workouts. While it feels soothing to wade into the icy river right after a run or to relax with an ice pack on your back after a pickup basketball game or CrossFit session, blunting post-exercise inflammation can compromise the adaptive response to workouts, of which inflammation is a critical component. Your muscles becoming inflamed during exercise—and remaining that way for hours afterward are part of how they become stronger and more resilient for future performances. In the hours after workouts, your muscles and other body systems are challenged to naturally repair exercise-induced damage, recalibrate to homeostasis, and replenish depleted cellular energy. Cold exposure also inhibits the function of the lymphatic system in clearing inflammatory toxins from the bloodstream. The takeaway: while cold feels great after workouts, don’t do it.

Furthering this concept about letting inflammation run its course, I know world ranked pro triathletes are experimenting with a complete avoidance of not just cold therapy, but also stretching, massage, and myofascial release (foam rolling.) The thinking here is that when those lower back muscles stiffen after 80 miles of hilly cycling, or hamstrings tighten up after a set of 800s on the track, loosening them up with massage strokes or foam rolling will weaken them and counteract the training stimulus. Again, these unwinding therapies might feel great, but you are teaching the central nervous system to relax the muscles that you just asked to contract with great force and duration for the workout. Andrew MacNaughton, former elite pro triathlete and current coach of both top professionals and recreational endurance athletes, says succinctly: “Don’t help your body, otherwise you lose some of the adaptation you’re seeking through your challenging workouts.”

The stuff is so counterintuitive that it becomes intuitive. Are you with me? Consider how it’s now widely understood that static stretching weakens muscles for up to 30 minutes and that you should not static stretch before workouts. This seems like a related principle applied to post workout. Keep in mind that we are isolating this “leave it be” concept to the topic of fitness adaptation. If you are trying to recover from (or prevent) injuries, massage, stretching, and foam rolling can make a valuable contribution—even in and around workouts as directed by an expert. Good old ice is still a recommended treatment in the immediate aftermath of an acute injury to help contain the swelling to the injured ankle (e.g., pickup basketball game) or eye (e.g., parking lot fight after pickup basketball game.)

However, the now dated RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) protocol for injury healing after the ~24-hour acute phase has been replaced by ECM (Elevate, Compress, and Move). Starrett is a leading advocate for ECM, with the emphasis on Move as the top priority for those sprained ankles or stiff calves. Look at some of K-Starr’s stuff on YouTube (like the amazing Voodoo Floss treatment), or read Becoming a Supple Leopard, and you’ll realize that many of today’s soothing therapies and gadgets can be bested by flexibility/mobility drills to help you move with more efficiency and less injury risk in the first place.

Back to cold therapy—it appears the greatest benefits accrue to the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, and immune system rather than the muscles. It’s difficult if not impossible for cold exposure to speed the healing of muscle damage incurred during training. Patience and increased general everyday movement are the big ticket items here.

In recent years, I’ve made a concerted effort to take frequent short walks or perform very light calisthenics or mobility sequences in the hours after a high intensity sprint workout or Ultimate Frisbee match, and it really seems to help me wake up the following day with less stiffness. My Primal Collagen Fuel regimen deserves tons of credit here too; it’s been an absolute game changer, particularly as I continue to insist on doing explosive jumps, burst and lateral movement against fit 20- and 30-somethings on the Ultimate field (yes, I’ve discovered that there are some big time gamers in Miami too!)

So, Should I Shell Out Like Cristiano Ronaldo For Cyrotherapy?

I was suspicious of the cryotherapy craze from the start, and Starrett concurs. Research is building that cryotherapy doesn’t deliver the same level of benefit that water exposure does. Starrett even observes that folks following a devoted cryo regimen don’t seem to tolerate cold water very well! Instead, for the price of only a handful of cryo sessions, I suggest you instead go to the cutting edge of cold therapy with an inexpensive and easily-accessible chest freezer regimen—details shortly.

When Is The Best Time For Cold Therapy?

Allow for a minimum of a couple hours, preferably more, after workouts before introducing cold exposure. Perhaps the best time for cold exposure is first thing in the morning for a cellular and central nervous system energizer, and also right before bed in order to help lower body temperature—a key element of transitioning into a good night’s sleep.

Chest Freezers: Not Just For Grass-Fed Beef Anymore

If you’re in Finland or in the Colorado rockies and have a year-round cold lake or river nearby (shout out to body hacking guru Ben Greenfield, author of Beyond Training and host of Ben Greenfield Podcast, who indeed has a cold river running through his property outside Spokane, WA), hey—you’re good to go! For the rest of us who don’t have a readily available natural source of cold water that’s reliably under 60 degrees (a good upper limit to observe for therapeutic practices, down to a lower limit of just above freezing), it’s time to talk about the wonder world of the chest freezer. Yep, the same item previously recommended on MDA for storing big orders of Internet-sourced grass-fed beef and other bulk-order treasures.

The idea here is to repurpose a chest freezer into a readily available, any time, any place cold plunge (even Miami, although I don’t think my high rise would allow me to sneak one into the first floor fitness center.). My Primal Endurance and Keto Reset Diet co-author Brad Kearns has plunged deep into the cold therapy scene (that’s #3 double-e if you’re keeping score) with a deluxe chest freezer setup and twice-a-day regimen of brief immersion into near-freezing water.

What you do here is take a 12-15 cubic foot, top opening chest freezer, fill it with water, and then run the motor on a timer for only around 1.5-4 hours per day—depending on the power of your unit, your ambient temperatures, and your desired exposure temperature. For a moderate investment of perhaps $200 on Craigslist or $400 for an ample-sized new unit (Brad grabbed this one with free home delivery), you are in the cold therapy business.

Brad’s preferred water temperature is 33 ºF (icicle alert!), maintained through continual tweaking of the 24-hour timer. Other enthusiasts like to keep water anywhere from 45-60 degrees, with exposure times ranging from 4 minutes at 44 degrees (easy to remember, per Dave Kobrine in Newport Coast, CA—Brad’s initial inspiration for cold therapy) to nearly 10 minutes at 60 degrees. Starrett, who keeps his water in the forties and has twice-weekly gatherings of friends for what he calls “church services” consisting of contrast therapy between chest freezer and hot sauna, confirms that there are no strict protocols to tout as superior to others, and surely significant individual variation in cold tolerance. “Get out before you start shivering!,” Starrett exclaims. “Never stay in to the extent that you suffer or experience pain or burning. Gabby and Laird suggest that if you’re in there long enough to shiver, you’re just showing off.”

Brad describes how he used to set a timer for three minutes at 33 ºF and tried to last that long but then realized that this could compromise the intended purpose of enjoying a Zenlike, mood-elevating start to the day. Instead, he prefers to start with a full submerging, then move hands and head out of water to complete a cycle of 20 slow, deep, diaphragmatic breaths while otherwise fully immersed—which ends up taking around three minutes. As cold water master Wim Hof has popularized lately, pairing a breathing regimen with your cold water immersion will enhance the circulation and oxygen delivery benefits.

Check out Brad’s video (completed in only one take), in which he describes (coherently, while sitting in freezing water) the benefits and setup logistics—everything you need to get started:

Benefits of Cold Exposure

The shock of cold exposure stimulates assorted fight or flight hormonal processes, which deliver an adaptive benefit because the stressor is brief. Contrast the prolonged fight or flight stimulation of hectic modern life (or exposing yourself to cold for too long and catching a cold—duh), which leads to breakdown and burnout.

Optimally brief cold exposure is a hormetic stressor—a natural stressor that delivers a net positive effect. Your heart rate and respiration increase as a way to try and keep warm, increasing blood flow and oxygen delivery throughout the body. Norepinephrine floods your brain, boosting vigilance, focus, attention and mood, and reducing pain and inflammation. The norepinephrine spike from cold exposure delivers what we often call an endorphin rush—natural pain relief and an enhanced sense of well-being.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick, one of the absolute best communicators of cutting edge health and longevity science anywhere, cites research that norepinephrine can rise 200-300 percent with just a 20-second immersion into freezing water a couple times a week (imagine going three minutes, twice a day like Brad—no wonder he was such a big help with this article). Patrick explains that norepinephrine also helps reduce inflammation by inhibiting inflammatory cytokines like the noted bad guy TNF-alpha, a known accomplice in many modern disease patterns.

Quelling inflammatory cytokines is also believed to help battle anxiety and depression. A researcher named Nikolai Shevchuk was quoted in a Fast Company article by Chris Gayomali, speculating about the mechanisms by which cold exposure can boost mood: “probably the stimulation of the dopaminergic transmission in the mesocorticolimbic and nigrostriatal pathway. These dopaminergic pathways are known to be involved in the regulation of emotions. There is a lot of research linking these brain areas to depression.” Indeed, it’s been chronicled that VanGogh was treated in an asylum for depression with two-hour cold baths, twice a week, to combat his well-known condition of depression.

Further tidbits were offered in the Fast Company article from Australian cold water researcher Ned Brophy-Williams on the anti-inflammatory benefits of cold water immersion: “It moves blood from the peripheral to deep blood vessels, thereby limiting inflammation and swelling and improving venous return. Metabolites and waste products built up during exercise can be efficiently removed by the body and nutrients quickly replenished to fatigued muscles.”

Carrying on if you’re still not convinced… Your lymphatic system is activated by cold exposure, helping speed the clearance of toxins from tissues throughout the body. You also elicit an enhanced anti-oxidative defense with increased T cell activity to improve your immune function.

Finally, you may have heard Dr. Patrick promoting the hot topic of heat shock proteins, and how sauna/heat exposure can deliver assorted health benefits. Patrick also informs us that cold exposure releases so-called cold shock proteins such as RNA binding motif 3 (RBM3) that are linked to the regeneration of synapses in the same manner as heat shock proteins. As the Finns have known for centuries, it seems like temperature alterations—deliberate exposure to both cold and hot—deliver phenomenal health benefits.

Cold Exposure—The Right Way—To Boost Recovery

For fitness enthusiasts looking to speed recovery with cold therapy, it’s now clear that the immediate post-exercise inflammation reduction is potentially harmful, and that implementing a simple daily regimen of morning and/or evening exposure can deliver the aforementioned benefits without compromising fitness adaptations. In recent years during the winter months in Malibu, Carrie and I would end our evenings with some 104F spa time, interspersed by quick visits to the sub-60F pool and back to the spa. I’d always end with a few minutes in the pool, leaving me wonderfully relaxed, cool, and ready for sleep. Brad’s morning chest freezer ritual looks as good or better than a morning caffeine blast to get going on a busy, productive day.

Beyond the exciting emerging science, anecdotal evidence from enthusiasts also suggests that toughing out a cold shower or committing to a focused cold therapy regimen has profound mood elevating effects. Primal Blueprint’s own Brian McAndrew (yeah, check out what our guy behind the camera looks like!), who produces our podcasts and fabulous videos on both our YouTube Channel and our comprehensive online multimedia educational courses, has dabbled in cold exposure, using contrast therapy at his health club (going back and forth between the ~50F cold plunge and the sauna at his Portland, OR health club), or just lingering up to his torso in a wintertime cold swimming pool. Brian relates, “All I know is that the worse I made myself feel in the moment [by staying longer in the cold], the better I felt afterwards in regards to mood. This was true for both cold and hot. Having the cold plunge and sauna together lets you go to further extremes, because you know you can get immediate relief at any moment with contrasting cold or warmth.”

Cold Exposure Gives Meaning And Richness To Life—Really!

I believe there are other profound cold therapy benefits that are hard-to-quantify. Starrett contends that your cold exposure practice can serve as a good barometer for your state of recovery and desire to train. He asserts that sore, stiff, or poorly functioning muscles seem to be more sensitive to cold exposure, and that if you’re in a fatigue/overtraining rut, your tolerance to cold diminishes accordingly. K-Starr notices that when he’s fried from big workouts or stressful travel, the cold water stings and he wants out quickly. When he’s less stressed and more rested, he has no problem relaxing in there for up to eight minutes. Remember, he’s jumping right into a dry sauna. As Brian described, your exposure times can increase when you have access to a sweet contrast setup.

Starrett’s “desire to train” concept deserves further appreciation. In his set of exclusive video interviews in the Primal Endurance Mastery Course and the Keto Reset Mastery Course, he references studies with athletes suggesting that a subjective “desire to train” score is a more accurate indicator than any of the modern high tech biofeedback metrics like Heart Rate Variability, pulse oximeters, blood lactate meters, sleep cycle apps and all the rest. As an old timer whose endurance exploits predate even heart rate monitors, I strongly agree that your intuition, mood and motivation level should take center stage for making workout decisions, especially when it’s time to downsize grand ambitions. I know that when I take a few moments to sit quietly and reflect on my planned workout, sometimes profound insights occur, and I roll over and go back to sleep. Ditto for when I hesitate to jump into a routine cold shower or pool plunge (or get out earlier than usual)—it’s a reliable indicator that I’m overstressed or overtired.

Furthering Brian’s comments about the mood elevating effects of cold therapy, I’d also suggest that cold exposure helps improve your focus, confidence, and mental resilience—particularly since you will improve your tolerance and appreciation over time—and that these benefits will carry over into all other areas of life. Lift heavy things, sprint once in a while, get adequate sun exposure, plunge into cold water—these are all hormetic stressors that help you bring your A-game to everything you do. I’m not saying sitting in a chest freezer every morning will help you muster the courage to ask for a promotion, commit to enter an adventure race, or ask for a date with that certain person in the office, but it might help….

If you’re content to spend almost all 24 daily hours in a climate controlled home, car, and office, enjoy the wholly modern luxury of a hot shower a couple times a day, and never voluntarily subject yourself to the beautiful moments of discomfort like a cold plunge, the final few reps of a tough set in the gym, or the final few miles of a tough session on the roads, that’s fine. We can still be friends. But as many of us living Primally can attest, there are benefits to challenging the perceived limits of mind and body in order to stimulate peak performance and happiness. Sir Roger Bannister, the legendary first sub-four minute miler who passed in March at age 88, offered up a memorable quote in his 1954 biography, The Four Minute Mile: “Struggle gives meaning and richness to life.” One thing’s for sure after you try it out:..

[watsonrodriquezie]

The (Maybe Not So) Definitive Guide to Cold Therapy

Cold is really catching these days. Aubrey Marcus, whom I recently filmed a nice podcast with, was asked about his winning daily behaviors on another show. The very first thing he mentioned was “exposure to cold.” His practice is finishing his morning shower with a three-minute stint at full cold setting. He mentioned the hormonal benefits but also the mental edge he gets from psyching up and accepting the challenge instead of wimping out. He also cited research that people who engage in therapeutic cold exposure catch fewer upper respiratory infections. Hence, like many other elements of conventional wisdom, the old wives tale is backwards. Of course, we are talking about acute and optimal duration cold exposure, not prolonged exposure to elements that weaken your resistance and contribute to immune disturbances.

As with keto, there’s much more to be learned in this burgeoning field before we can operate in definitive (hence today’s title). Today, however, I’ll expose you (the first of more double entendrés to be on the lookout for) to important concepts and best practices so that you may enjoy the vaunted benefits and avoid some of the negative effects of going about cold exposure wrong.

Cold therapy has been around forever as in the athletic world—a central element of injury treatment and post-workout recovery. Ice packs wrapped on aching joints are a staple of every high school, college and professional team locker room. The iconic stainless steel cold whirlpool has been a post-workout destination of professional ballers for decades, and Olympic distance runners have inspired millions of recreational runners to dutifully wade into a cold stream, lake or pool after long runs to soothe and revitalize inflamed muscles. In recent years, whole body cryotherapy clinics have exploded in popularity, making grand promises in return for $45-$90 (the latter in NYC) for a three-minute session in a chamber blowing air at 190-255 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. I haven’t tried cryo, but let’s just say I’ve heard it stings.

In writing Primal Endurance, my co-author Brad Kearns and I studied the cold therapy subject extensively to convey some best practices in the recovery chapter of the book. For this article, we also consulted with Dr. Kelly “K-Starr” Starrett—thought leader on all things mobility, rehab, prevention, and performance (check MobilityWOD.com or Becoming A Supple Leopard for cutting edge strategies that will keep you moving optimally and avoiding breakdown and injury) and reviewed numerous articles, which you will find linked or at the end of the post.

It appears that while cold therapy can offer some proven benefits for inflammation control, enhanced cellular, immune, and cognitive function, and recovery from exercise, numerous elements of cold therapy claims seem to be hype, notably the expensive cryochambers (cold water is better) and the potential of cold exposure to reduce body fat (cut grains and sugars instead!) Worse, the prominent cold therapy practice of post-exercise immersion into cold water or application of ice appears to be counterproductive, compromising potential fitness gains generated by hard workouts.

What NOT To Do…

The most emphatic suggestion made by K-Starr is that cold exposure should happen far away from the stimulus of workouts. While it feels soothing to wade into the icy river right after a run or to relax with an ice pack on your back after a pickup basketball game or CrossFit session, blunting post-exercise inflammation can compromise the adaptive response to workouts, of which inflammation is a critical component. Your muscles becoming inflamed during exercise—and remaining that way for hours afterward are part of how they become stronger and more resilient for future performances. In the hours after workouts, your muscles and other body systems are challenged to naturally repair exercise-induced damage, recalibrate to homeostasis, and replenish depleted cellular energy. Cold exposure also inhibits the function of the lymphatic system in clearing inflammatory toxins from the bloodstream. The takeaway: while cold feels great after workouts, don’t do it.

Furthering this concept about letting inflammation run its course, I know world ranked pro triathletes are experimenting with a complete avoidance of not just cold therapy, but also stretching, massage, and myofascial release (foam rolling.) The thinking here is that when those lower back muscles stiffen after 80 miles of hilly cycling, or hamstrings tighten up after a set of 800s on the track, loosening them up with massage strokes or foam rolling will weaken them and counteract the training stimulus. Again, these unwinding therapies might feel great, but you are teaching the central nervous system to relax the muscles that you just asked to contract with great force and duration for the workout. Andrew MacNaughton, former elite pro triathlete and current coach of both top professionals and recreational endurance athletes, says succinctly: “Don’t help your body, otherwise you lose some of the adaptation you’re seeking through your challenging workouts.”

The stuff is so counterintuitive that it becomes intuitive. Are you with me? Consider how it’s now widely understood that static stretching weakens muscles for up to 30 minutes and that you should not static stretch before workouts. This seems like a related principle applied to post workout. Keep in mind that we are isolating this “leave it be” concept to the topic of fitness adaptation. If you are trying to recover from (or prevent) injuries, massage, stretching, and foam rolling can make a valuable contribution—even in and around workouts as directed by an expert. Good old ice is still a recommended treatment in the immediate aftermath of an acute injury to help contain the swelling to the injured ankle (e.g., pickup basketball game) or eye (e.g., parking lot fight after pickup basketball game.)

However, the now dated RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) protocol for injury healing after the ~24-hour acute phase has been replaced by ECM (Elevate, Compress, and Move). Starrett is a leading advocate for ECM, with the emphasis on Move as the top priority for those sprained ankles or stiff calves. Look at some of K-Starr’s stuff on YouTube (like the amazing Voodoo Floss treatment), or read Becoming a Supple Leopard, and you’ll realize that many of today’s soothing therapies and gadgets can be bested by flexibility/mobility drills to help you move with more efficiency and less injury risk in the first place.

Back to cold therapy—it appears the greatest benefits accrue to the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, and immune system rather than the muscles. It’s difficult if not impossible for cold exposure to speed the healing of muscle damage incurred during training. Patience and increased general everyday movement are the big ticket items here.

In recent years, I’ve made a concerted effort to take frequent short walks or perform very light calisthenics or mobility sequences in the hours after a high intensity sprint workout or Ultimate Frisbee match, and it really seems to help me wake up the following day with less stiffness. My Primal Collagen Fuel regimen deserves tons of credit here too; it’s been an absolute game changer, particularly as I continue to insist on doing explosive jumps, burst and lateral movement against fit 20- and 30-somethings on the Ultimate field (yes, I’ve discovered that there are some big time gamers in Miami too!)

So, Should I Shell Out Like Cristiano Ronaldo For Cyrotherapy?

I was suspicious of the cryotherapy craze from the start, and Starrett concurs. Research is building that cryotherapy doesn’t deliver the same level of benefit that water exposure does. Starrett even observes that folks following a devoted cryo regimen don’t seem to tolerate cold water very well! Instead, for the price of only a handful of cryo sessions, I suggest you instead go to the cutting edge of cold therapy with an inexpensive and easily-accessible chest freezer regimen—details shortly.

When Is The Best Time For Cold Therapy?

Allow for a minimum of a couple hours, preferably more, after workouts before introducing cold exposure. Perhaps the best time for cold exposure is first thing in the morning for a cellular and central nervous system energizer, and also right before bed in order to help lower body temperature—a key element of transitioning into a good night’s sleep.

Chest Freezers: Not Just For Grass-Fed Beef Anymore

If you’re in Finland or in the Colorado rockies and have a year-round cold lake or river nearby (shout out to body hacking guru Ben Greenfield, author of Beyond Training and host of Ben Greenfield Podcast, who indeed has a cold river running through his property outside Spokane, WA), hey—you’re good to go! For the rest of us who don’t have a readily available natural source of cold water that’s reliably under 60 degrees (a good upper limit to observe for therapeutic practices, down to a lower limit of just above freezing), it’s time to talk about the wonder world of the chest freezer. Yep, the same item previously recommended on MDA for storing big orders of Internet-sourced grass-fed beef and other bulk-order treasures.

The idea here is to repurpose a chest freezer into a readily available, any time, any place cold plunge (even Miami, although I don’t think my high rise would allow me to sneak one into the first floor fitness center.). My Primal Endurance and Keto Reset Diet co-author Brad Kearns has plunged deep into the cold therapy scene (that’s #3 double-e if you’re keeping score) with a deluxe chest freezer setup and twice-a-day regimen of brief immersion into near-freezing water.

What you do here is take a 12-15 cubic foot, top opening chest freezer, fill it with water, and then run the motor on a timer for only around 1.5-4 hours per day—depending on the power of your unit, your ambient temperatures, and your desired exposure temperature. For a moderate investment of perhaps $200 on Craigslist or $400 for an ample-sized new unit (Brad grabbed this one with free home delivery), you are in the cold therapy business.

Brad’s preferred water temperature is 33 ºF (icicle alert!), maintained through continual tweaking of the 24-hour timer. Other enthusiasts like to keep water anywhere from 45-60 degrees, with exposure times ranging from 4 minutes at 44 degrees (easy to remember, per Dave Kobrine in Newport Coast, CA—Brad’s initial inspiration for cold therapy) to nearly 10 minutes at 60 degrees. Starrett, who keeps his water in the forties and has twice-weekly gatherings of friends for what he calls “church services” consisting of contrast therapy between chest freezer and hot sauna, confirms that there are no strict protocols to tout as superior to others, and surely significant individual variation in cold tolerance. “Get out before you start shivering!,” Starrett exclaims. “Never stay in to the extent that you suffer or experience pain or burning. Gabby and Laird suggest that if you’re in there long enough to shiver, you’re just showing off.”

Brad describes how he used to set a timer for three minutes at 33 ºF and tried to last that long but then realized that this could compromise the intended purpose of enjoying a Zenlike, mood-elevating start to the day. Instead, he prefers to start with a full submerging, then move hands and head out of water to complete a cycle of 20 slow, deep, diaphragmatic breaths while otherwise fully immersed—which ends up taking around three minutes. As cold water master Wim Hof has popularized lately, pairing a breathing regimen with your cold water immersion will enhance the circulation and oxygen delivery benefits.

Check out Brad’s video (completed in only one take), in which he describes (coherently, while sitting in freezing water) the benefits and setup logistics—everything you need to get started:

Benefits of Cold Exposure

The shock of cold exposure stimulates assorted fight or flight hormonal processes, which deliver an adaptive benefit because the stressor is brief. Contrast the prolonged fight or flight stimulation of hectic modern life (or exposing yourself to cold for too long and catching a cold—duh), which leads to breakdown and burnout.

Optimally brief cold exposure is a hormetic stressor—a natural stressor that delivers a net positive effect. Your heart rate and respiration increase as a way to try and keep warm, increasing blood flow and oxygen delivery throughout the body. Norepinephrine floods your brain, boosting vigilance, focus, attention and mood, and reducing pain and inflammation. The norepinephrine spike from cold exposure delivers what we often call an endorphin rush—natural pain relief and an enhanced sense of well-being.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick, one of the absolute best communicators of cutting edge health and longevity science anywhere, cites research that norepinephrine can rise 200-300 percent with just a 20-second immersion into freezing water a couple times a week (imagine going three minutes, twice a day like Brad—no wonder he was such a big help with this article). Patrick explains that norepinephrine also helps reduce inflammation by inhibiting inflammatory cytokines like the noted bad guy TNF-alpha, a known accomplice in many modern disease patterns.

Quelling inflammatory cytokines is also believed to help battle anxiety and depression. A researcher named Nikolai Shevchuk was quoted in a Fast Company article by Chris Gayomali, speculating about the mechanisms by which cold exposure can boost mood: “probably the stimulation of the dopaminergic transmission in the mesocorticolimbic and nigrostriatal pathway. These dopaminergic pathways are known to be involved in the regulation of emotions. There is a lot of research linking these brain areas to depression.” Indeed, it’s been chronicled that VanGogh was treated in an asylum for depression with two-hour cold baths, twice a week, to combat his well-known condition of depression.

Further tidbits were offered in the Fast Company article from Australian cold water researcher Ned Brophy-Williams on the anti-inflammatory benefits of cold water immersion: “It moves blood from the peripheral to deep blood vessels, thereby limiting inflammation and swelling and improving venous return. Metabolites and waste products built up during exercise can be efficiently removed by the body and nutrients quickly replenished to fatigued muscles.”

Carrying on if you’re still not convinced… Your lymphatic system is activated by cold exposure, helping speed the clearance of toxins from tissues throughout the body. You also elicit an enhanced anti-oxidative defense with increased T cell activity to improve your immune function.

Finally, you may have heard Dr. Patrick promoting the hot topic of heat shock proteins, and how sauna/heat exposure can deliver assorted health benefits. Patrick also informs us that cold exposure releases so-called cold shock proteins such as RNA binding motif 3 (RBM3) that are linked to the regeneration of synapses in the same manner as heat shock proteins. As the Finns have known for centuries, it seems like temperature alterations—deliberate exposure to both cold and hot—deliver phenomenal health benefits.

Cold Exposure—The Right Way—To Boost Recovery

For fitness enthusiasts looking to speed recovery with cold therapy, it’s now clear that the immediate post-exercise inflammation reduction is potentially harmful, and that implementing a simple daily regimen of morning and/or evening exposure can deliver the aforementioned benefits without compromising fitness adaptations. In recent years during the winter months in Malibu, Carrie and I would end our evenings with some 104F spa time, interspersed by quick visits to the sub-60F pool and back to the spa. I’d always end with a few minutes in the pool, leaving me wonderfully relaxed, cool, and ready for sleep. Brad’s morning chest freezer ritual looks as good or better than a morning caffeine blast to get going on a busy, productive day.

Beyond the exciting emerging science, anecdotal evidence from enthusiasts also suggests that toughing out a cold shower or committing to a focused cold therapy regimen has profound mood elevating effects. Primal Blueprint’s own Brian McAndrew (yeah, check out what our guy behind the camera looks like!), who produces our podcasts and fabulous videos on both our YouTube Channel and our comprehensive online multimedia educational courses, has dabbled in cold exposure, using contrast therapy at his health club (going back and forth between the ~50F cold plunge and the sauna at his Portland, OR health club), or just lingering up to his torso in a wintertime cold swimming pool. Brian relates, “All I know is that the worse I made myself feel in the moment [by staying longer in the cold], the better I felt afterwards in regards to mood. This was true for both cold and hot. Having the cold plunge and sauna together lets you go to further extremes, because you know you can get immediate relief at any moment with contrasting cold or warmth.”

Cold Exposure Gives Meaning And Richness To Life—Really!

I believe there are other profound cold therapy benefits that are hard-to-quantify. Starrett contends that your cold exposure practice can serve as a good barometer for your state of recovery and desire to train. He asserts that sore, stiff, or poorly functioning muscles seem to be more sensitive to cold exposure, and that if you’re in a fatigue/overtraining rut, your tolerance to cold diminishes accordingly. K-Starr notices that when he’s fried from big workouts or stressful travel, the cold water stings and he wants out quickly. When he’s less stressed and more rested, he has no problem relaxing in there for up to eight minutes. Remember, he’s jumping right into a dry sauna. As Brian described, your exposure times can increase when you have access to a sweet contrast setup.

Starrett’s “desire to train” concept deserves further appreciation. In his set of exclusive video interviews in the Primal Endurance Mastery Course and the Keto Reset Mastery Course, he references studies with athletes suggesting that a subjective “desire to train” score is a more accurate indicator than any of the modern high tech biofeedback metrics like Heart Rate Variability, pulse oximeters, blood lactate meters, sleep cycle apps and all the rest. As an old timer whose endurance exploits predate even heart rate monitors, I strongly agree that your intuition, mood and motivation level should take center stage for making workout decisions, especially when it’s time to downsize grand ambitions. I know that when I take a few moments to sit quietly and reflect on my planned workout, sometimes profound insights occur, and I roll over and go back to sleep. Ditto for when I hesitate to jump into a routine cold shower or pool plunge (or get out earlier than usual)—it’s a reliable indicator that I’m overstressed or overtired.

Furthering Brian’s comments about the mood elevating effects of cold therapy, I’d also suggest that cold exposure helps improve your focus, confidence, and mental resilience—particularly since you will improve your tolerance and appreciation over time—and that these benefits will carry over into all other areas of life. Lift heavy things, sprint once in a while, get adequate sun exposure, plunge into cold water—these are all hormetic stressors that help you bring your A-game to everything you do. I’m not saying sitting in a chest freezer every morning will help you muster the courage to ask for a promotion, commit to enter an adventure race, or ask for a date with that certain person in the office, but it might help….

If you’re content to spend almost all 24 daily hours in a climate controlled home, car, and office, enjoy the wholly modern luxury of a hot shower a couple times a day, and never voluntarily subject yourself to the beautiful moments of discomfort like a cold plunge, the final few reps of a tough set in the gym, or the final few miles of a tough session on the roads, that’s fine. We can still be friends. But as many of us living Primally can attest, there are benefits to challenging the perceived limits of mind and body in order to stimulate peak performance and happiness. Sir Roger Bannister, the legendary first sub-four minute miler who passed in March at age 88, offered up a memorable quote in his 1954 biography, The Four Minute Mile: “Struggle gives meaning and richness to life.” One thing’s for sure after you try it out:..

[cynthiamwashington]

The (Maybe Not So) Definitive Guide to Cold Therapy

Cold is really catching these days. Aubrey Marcus, whom I recently filmed a nice podcast with, was asked about his winning daily behaviors on another show. The very first thing he mentioned was “exposure to cold.” His practice is finishing his morning shower with a three-minute stint at full cold setting. He mentioned the hormonal benefits but also the mental edge he gets from psyching up and accepting the challenge instead of wimping out. He also cited research that people who engage in therapeutic cold exposure catch fewer upper respiratory infections. Hence, like many other elements of conventional wisdom, the old wives tale is backwards. Of course, we are talking about acute and optimal duration cold exposure, not prolonged exposure to elements that weaken your resistance and contribute to immune disturbances.

As with keto, there’s much more to be learned in this burgeoning field before we can operate in definitive (hence today’s title). Today, however, I’ll expose you (the first of more double entendrés to be on the lookout for) to important concepts and best practices so that you may enjoy the vaunted benefits and avoid some of the negative effects of going about cold exposure wrong.

Cold therapy has been around forever as in the athletic world—a central element of injury treatment and post-workout recovery. Ice packs wrapped on aching joints are a staple of every high school, college and professional team locker room. The iconic stainless steel cold whirlpool has been a post-workout destination of professional ballers for decades, and Olympic distance runners have inspired millions of recreational runners to dutifully wade into a cold stream, lake or pool after long runs to soothe and revitalize inflamed muscles. In recent years, whole body cryotherapy clinics have exploded in popularity, making grand promises in return for $45-$90 (the latter in NYC) for a three-minute session in a chamber blowing air at 190-255 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. I haven’t tried cryo, but let’s just say I’ve heard it stings.

In writing Primal Endurance, my co-author Brad Kearns and I studied the cold therapy subject extensively to convey some best practices in the recovery chapter of the book. For this article, we also consulted with Dr. Kelly “K-Starr” Starrett—thought leader on all things mobility, rehab, prevention, and performance (check MobilityWOD.com or Becoming A Supple Leopard for cutting edge strategies that will keep you moving optimally and avoiding breakdown and injury) and reviewed numerous articles, which you will find linked or at the end of the post.

It appears that while cold therapy can offer some proven benefits for inflammation control, enhanced cellular, immune, and cognitive function, and recovery from exercise, numerous elements of cold therapy claims seem to be hype, notably the expensive cryochambers (cold water is better) and the potential of cold exposure to reduce body fat (cut grains and sugars instead!) Worse, the prominent cold therapy practice of post-exercise immersion into cold water or application of ice appears to be counterproductive, compromising potential fitness gains generated by hard workouts.

What NOT To Do…

The most emphatic suggestion made by K-Starr is that cold exposure should happen far away from the stimulus of workouts. While it feels soothing to wade into the icy river right after a run or to relax with an ice pack on your back after a pickup basketball game or CrossFit session, blunting post-exercise inflammation can compromise the adaptive response to workouts, of which inflammation is a critical component. Your muscles becoming inflamed during exercise—and remaining that way for hours afterward are part of how they become stronger and more resilient for future performances. In the hours after workouts, your muscles and other body systems are challenged to naturally repair exercise-induced damage, recalibrate to homeostasis, and replenish depleted cellular energy. Cold exposure also inhibits the function of the lymphatic system in clearing inflammatory toxins from the bloodstream. The takeaway: while cold feels great after workouts, don’t do it.

Furthering this concept about letting inflammation run its course, I know world ranked pro triathletes are experimenting with a complete avoidance of not just cold therapy, but also stretching, massage, and myofascial release (foam rolling.) The thinking here is that when those lower back muscles stiffen after 80 miles of hilly cycling, or hamstrings tighten up after a set of 800s on the track, loosening them up with massage strokes or foam rolling will weaken them and counteract the training stimulus. Again, these unwinding therapies might feel great, but you are teaching the central nervous system to relax the muscles that you just asked to contract with great force and duration for the workout. Andrew MacNaughton, former elite pro triathlete and current coach of both top professionals and recreational endurance athletes, says succinctly: “Don’t help your body, otherwise you lose some of the adaptation you’re seeking through your challenging workouts.”

The stuff is so counterintuitive that it becomes intuitive. Are you with me? Consider how it’s now widely understood that static stretching weakens muscles for up to 30 minutes and that you should not static stretch before workouts. This seems like a related principle applied to post workout. Keep in mind that we are isolating this “leave it be” concept to the topic of fitness adaptation. If you are trying to recover from (or prevent) injuries, massage, stretching, and foam rolling can make a valuable contribution—even in and around workouts as directed by an expert. Good old ice is still a recommended treatment in the immediate aftermath of an acute injury to help contain the swelling to the injured ankle (e.g., pickup basketball game) or eye (e.g., parking lot fight after pickup basketball game.)

However, the now dated RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) protocol for injury healing after the ~24-hour acute phase has been replaced by ECM (Elevate, Compress, and Move). Starrett is a leading advocate for ECM, with the emphasis on Move as the top priority for those sprained ankles or stiff calves. Look at some of K-Starr’s stuff on YouTube (like the amazing Voodoo Floss treatment), or read Becoming a Supple Leopard, and you’ll realize that many of today’s soothing therapies and gadgets can be bested by flexibility/mobility drills to help you move with more efficiency and less injury risk in the first place.

Back to cold therapy—it appears the greatest benefits accrue to the central nervous system, cardiovascular system, and immune system rather than the muscles. It’s difficult if not impossible for cold exposure to speed the healing of muscle damage incurred during training. Patience and increased general everyday movement are the big ticket items here.

In recent years, I’ve made a concerted effort to take frequent short walks or perform very light calisthenics or mobility sequences in the hours after a high intensity sprint workout or Ultimate Frisbee match, and it really seems to help me wake up the following day with less stiffness. My Primal Collagen Fuel regimen deserves tons of credit here too; it’s been an absolute game changer, particularly as I continue to insist on doing explosive jumps, burst and lateral movement against fit 20- and 30-somethings on the Ultimate field (yes, I’ve discovered that there are some big time gamers in Miami too!)

So, Should I Shell Out Like Cristiano Ronaldo For Cyrotherapy?

I was suspicious of the cryotherapy craze from the start, and Starrett concurs. Research is building that cryotherapy doesn’t deliver the same level of benefit that water exposure does. Starrett even observes that folks following a devoted cryo regimen don’t seem to tolerate cold water very well! Instead, for the price of only a handful of cryo sessions, I suggest you instead go to the cutting edge of cold therapy with an inexpensive and easily-accessible chest freezer regimen—details shortly.

When Is The Best Time For Cold Therapy?

Allow for a minimum of a couple hours, preferably more, after workouts before introducing cold exposure. Perhaps the best time for cold exposure is first thing in the morning for a cellular and central nervous system energizer, and also right before bed in order to help lower body temperature—a key element of transitioning into a good night’s sleep.

Chest Freezers: Not Just For Grass-Fed Beef Anymore

If you’re in Finland or in the Colorado rockies and have a year-round cold lake or river nearby (shout out to body hacking guru Ben Greenfield, author of Beyond Training and host of Ben Greenfield Podcast, who indeed has a cold river running through his property outside Spokane, WA), hey—you’re good to go! For the rest of us who don’t have a readily available natural source of cold water that’s reliably under 60 degrees (a good upper limit to observe for therapeutic practices, down to a lower limit of just above freezing), it’s time to talk about the wonder world of the chest freezer. Yep, the same item previously recommended on MDA for storing big orders of Internet-sourced grass-fed beef and other bulk-order treasures.

The idea here is to repurpose a chest freezer into a readily available, any time, any place cold plunge (even Miami, although I don’t think my high rise would allow me to sneak one into the first floor fitness center.). My Primal Endurance and Keto Reset Diet co-author Brad Kearns has plunged deep into the cold therapy scene (that’s #3 double-e if you’re keeping score) with a deluxe chest freezer setup and twice-a-day regimen of brief immersion into near-freezing water.

What you do here is take a 12-15 cubic foot, top opening chest freezer, fill it with water, and then run the motor on a timer for only around 1.5-4 hours per day—depending on the power of your unit, your ambient temperatures, and your desired exposure temperature. For a moderate investment of perhaps $200 on Craigslist or $400 for an ample-sized new unit (Brad grabbed this one with free home delivery), you are in the cold therapy business.

Brad’s preferred water temperature is 33 ºF (icicle alert!), maintained through continual tweaking of the 24-hour timer. Other enthusiasts like to keep water anywhere from 45-60 degrees, with exposure times ranging from 4 minutes at 44 degrees (easy to remember, per Dave Kobrine in Newport Coast, CA—Brad’s initial inspiration for cold therapy) to nearly 10 minutes at 60 degrees. Starrett, who keeps his water in the forties and has twice-weekly gatherings of friends for what he calls “church services” consisting of contrast therapy between chest freezer and hot sauna, confirms that there are no strict protocols to tout as superior to others, and surely significant individual variation in cold tolerance. “Get out before you start shivering!,” Starrett exclaims. “Never stay in to the extent that you suffer or experience pain or burning. Gabby and Laird suggest that if you’re in there long enough to shiver, you’re just showing off.”

Brad describes how he used to set a timer for three minutes at 33 ºF and tried to last that long but then realized that this could compromise the intended purpose of enjoying a Zenlike, mood-elevating start to the day. Instead, he prefers to start with a full submerging, then move hands and head out of water to complete a cycle of 20 slow, deep, diaphragmatic breaths while otherwise fully immersed—which ends up taking around three minutes. As cold water master Wim Hof has popularized lately, pairing a breathing regimen with your cold water immersion will enhance the circulation and oxygen delivery benefits.

Check out Brad’s video (completed in only one take), in which he describes (coherently, while sitting in freezing water) the benefits and setup logistics—everything you need to get started:

Benefits of Cold Exposure

The shock of cold exposure stimulates assorted fight or flight hormonal processes, which deliver an adaptive benefit because the stressor is brief. Contrast the prolonged fight or flight stimulation of hectic modern life (or exposing yourself to cold for too long and catching a cold—duh), which leads to breakdown and burnout.

Optimally brief cold exposure is a hormetic stressor—a natural stressor that delivers a net positive effect. Your heart rate and respiration increase as a way to try and keep warm, increasing blood flow and oxygen delivery throughout the body. Norepinephrine floods your brain, boosting vigilance, focus, attention and mood, and reducing pain and inflammation. The norepinephrine spike from cold exposure delivers what we often call an endorphin rush—natural pain relief and an enhanced sense of well-being.

Dr. Rhonda Patrick, one of the absolute best communicators of cutting edge health and longevity science anywhere, cites research that norepinephrine can rise 200-300 percent with just a 20-second immersion into freezing water a couple times a week (imagine going three minutes, twice a day like Brad—no wonder he was such a big help with this article). Patrick explains that norepinephrine also helps reduce inflammation by inhibiting inflammatory cytokines like the noted bad guy TNF-alpha, a known accomplice in many modern disease patterns.

Quelling inflammatory cytokines is also believed to help battle anxiety and depression. A researcher named Nikolai Shevchuk was quoted in a Fast Company article by Chris Gayomali, speculating about the mechanisms by which cold exposure can boost mood: “probably the stimulation of the dopaminergic transmission in the mesocorticolimbic and nigrostriatal pathway. These dopaminergic pathways are known to be involved in the regulation of emotions. There is a lot of research linking these brain areas to depression.” Indeed, it’s been chronicled that VanGogh was treated in an asylum for depression with two-hour cold baths, twice a week, to combat his well-known condition of depression.

Further tidbits were offered in the Fast Company article from Australian cold water researcher Ned Brophy-Williams on the anti-inflammatory benefits of cold water immersion: “It moves blood from the peripheral to deep blood vessels, thereby limiting inflammation and swelling and improving venous return. Metabolites and waste products built up during exercise can be efficiently removed by the body and nutrients quickly replenished to fatigued muscles.”

Carrying on if you’re still not convinced… Your lymphatic system is activated by cold exposure, helping speed the clearance of toxins from tissues throughout the body. You also elicit an enhanced anti-oxidative defense with increased T cell activity to improve your immune function.

Finally, you may have heard Dr. Patrick promoting the hot topic of heat shock proteins, and how sauna/heat exposure can deliver assorted health benefits. Patrick also informs us that cold exposure releases so-called cold shock proteins such as RNA binding motif 3 (RBM3) that are linked to the regeneration of synapses in the same manner as heat shock proteins. As the Finns have known for centuries, it seems like temperature alterations—deliberate exposure to both cold and hot—deliver phenomenal health benefits.

Cold Exposure—The Right Way—To Boost Recovery

For fitness enthusiasts looking to speed recovery with cold therapy, it’s now clear that the immediate post-exercise inflammation reduction is potentially harmful, and that implementing a simple daily regimen of morning and/or evening exposure can deliver the aforementioned benefits without compromising fitness adaptations. In recent years during the winter months in Malibu, Carrie and I would end our evenings with some 104F spa time, interspersed by quick visits to the sub-60F pool and back to the spa. I’d always end with a few minutes in the pool, leaving me wonderfully relaxed, cool, and ready for sleep. Brad’s morning chest freezer ritual looks as good or better than a morning caffeine blast to get going on a busy, productive day.

Beyond the exciting emerging science, anecdotal evidence from enthusiasts also suggests that toughing out a cold shower or committing to a focused cold therapy regimen has profound mood elevating effects. Primal Blueprint’s own Brian McAndrew (yeah, check out what our guy behind the camera looks like!), who produces our podcasts and fabulous videos on both our YouTube Channel and our comprehensive online multimedia educational courses, has dabbled in cold exposure, using contrast therapy at his health club (going back and forth between the ~50F cold plunge and the sauna at his Portland, OR health club), or just lingering up to his torso in a wintertime cold swimming pool. Brian relates, “All I know is that the worse I made myself feel in the moment [by staying longer in the cold], the better I felt afterwards in regards to mood. This was true for both cold and hot. Having the cold plunge and sauna together lets you go to further extremes, because you know you can get immediate relief at any moment with contrasting cold or warmth.”

Cold Exposure Gives Meaning And Richness To Life—Really!

I believe there are other profound cold therapy benefits that are hard-to-quantify. Starrett contends that your cold exposure practice can serve as a good barometer for your state of recovery and desire to train. He asserts that sore, stiff, or poorly functioning muscles seem to be more sensitive to cold exposure, and that if you’re in a fatigue/overtraining rut, your tolerance to cold diminishes accordingly. K-Starr notices that when he’s fried from big workouts or stressful travel, the cold water stings and he wants out quickly. When he’s less stressed and more rested, he has no problem relaxing in there for up to eight minutes. Remember, he’s jumping right into a dry sauna. As Brian described, your exposure times can increase when you have access to a sweet contrast setup.

Starrett’s “desire to train” concept deserves further appreciation. In his set of exclusive video interviews in the Primal Endurance Mastery Course and the Keto Reset Mastery Course, he references studies with athletes suggesting that a subjective “desire to train” score is a more accurate indicator than any of the modern high tech biofeedback metrics like Heart Rate Variability, pulse oximeters, blood lactate meters, sleep cycle apps and all the rest. As an old timer whose endurance exploits predate even heart rate monitors, I strongly agree that your intuition, mood and motivation level should take center stage for making workout decisions, especially when it’s time to downsize grand ambitions. I know that when I take a few moments to sit quietly and reflect on my planned workout, sometimes profound insights occur, and I roll over and go back to sleep. Ditto for when I hesitate to jump into a routine cold shower or pool plunge (or get out earlier than usual)—it’s a reliable indicator that I’m overstressed or overtired.

Furthering Brian’s comments about the mood elevating effects of cold therapy, I’d also suggest that cold exposure helps improve your focus, confidence, and mental resilience—particularly since you will improve your tolerance and appreciation over time—and that these benefits will carry over into all other areas of life. Lift heavy things, sprint once in a while, get adequate sun exposure, plunge into cold water—these are all hormetic stressors that help you bring your A-game to everything you do. I’m not saying sitting in a chest freezer every morning will help you muster the courage to ask for a promotion, commit to enter an adventure race, or ask for a date with that certain person in the office, but it might help….

If you’re content to spend almost all 24 daily hours in a climate controlled home, car, and office, enjoy the wholly modern luxury of a hot shower a couple times a day, and never voluntarily subject yourself to the beautiful moments of discomfort like a cold plunge, the final few reps of a tough set in the gym, or the final few miles of a tough session on the roads, that’s fine. We can still be friends. But as many of us living Primally can attest, there are benefits to challenging the perceived limits of mind and body in order to stimulate peak performance and happiness. Sir Roger Bannister, the legendary first sub-four minute miler who passed in March at age 88, offered up a memorable quote in his 1954 biography, The Four Minute Mile: “Struggle gives meaning and richness to life.” One thing’s for sure after you try it out: you will appreciate a warm shower or a warm bed like never before.

Does Cold Exposure Stimulate Fat Reduction? Mehhh…

You may have heard exciting news about something called Brown Adipose Tissue (aka BAT, or brown fat), a special type of adipose tissue that has a different role in the body than the fat that accumulates across the body when you store more calories than you burn; this stuff is known as white adipose tissue. Instead of just storing calories like white fat, brown fat is also able to generate heat to help maintain the body’s ideal core temperature. Infants have lots of brown fat for extra protection. Brown fat levels dwindle as we age, and interestingly, obese people have lower than normal levels of brown fat.

The excitement about brown fat emanates from research showing that cold exposure spurs a fifteen-fold increase in brown fat activation. It’s theorized that this increase in cellular activity in brown adipose tissue can help stimulate the burning of additional white fat, making cold exposure an effective weight loss catalyst. The idea here is that the caloric energy your brown fat generates for rewarming will be burned instead of otherwise stored as white fat.

Research is not conclusive in the brown fat area, and scientists assert that it’s very difficult to measure the effect of environmental temperature on metabolism. It’s virtually certain that getting cold and then forcing yourself to warm naturally (no saunas or hot showers allowed!) will boost metabolic rate. However, I’d hesitate to put this in the forefront of fat reduction techniques. Even as drug companies are spending millions to unlock the power of brown fat (via cold exposure or drug-related means) to burn white fat, I’ll argue that ditching grains, sugars and refined vegetable oils to minimize insulin and boost fat metabolism might be a much better area of focus. What’s more, there is a logical counterargument that cold exposure might stimulate a corresponding increase in appetite that would counteract any potential fat reduction benefits. This makes sense along the lines of the compensation theory of exercise, detailed in a recent post about Rest and Recovery.

Ray Cronise, a former NASA materials scientist who oversaw Space Shuttle experiments and has been a prominent voice in progressive health circles for the past decade, has performed some increasingly sophisticated experiments that suggest the potential of cold exposure to boost fat loss. Cronise lost a remarkable 27 pounds in six weeks with a regimen of cold showers, talking neighborhood walks while purposely way underdressed, and sleeping with open windows and/or little or no covering. Cronise’s experiment was inspired by that infamous viral news story about Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps eating 12,000 calorie per day that I discussed in the recent Sami Inkinen post. Doing some basic metabolic calculations, Cronise speculated that Phelps was eating vastly more calories than he burned during his intense workouts, and that hence a significant portion of his caloric expenditure must be going toward maintaining his core temperature while spending hours in the water.

Tim Ferriss brought more attention to Cronise’s work and the concept of burning off brown fat through cold exposure when he covered the matter in his bestseller, The Four Hour Body. Google brown fat and you will find assorted chatter jumping to the conclusion that brown fat stimulation promotes weight loss, but the hard science is just not there—yet anyway. For now, I wouldn’t put much emphasis on cold exposure for fat loss, and instead be content to enjoy the many other benefits of cold therapy.

Nothing left to say but get yourself a chest freezer (another chest freezer?) and get started! Let me know what you think, and thanks for stopping by today.

A Few More Links For Your Enjoyment: Tapping the Power Of Cold To Lose Weight Scientific Case For Cold Showers Top 7 Reasons You Should Take Cold Showers Brown Fat Burns White Fat Studies Surprising Benefits Of Cold Showers Dr. Rhonda Patrick on health benefits of cold and sauna

The post The (Maybe Not So) Definitive Guide to Cold Therapy appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Article source here:Marks’s Daily Apple

[hoperays-song]

...Johnny, do you need a hug?

[alindakb]

Letters to my Parents - Wednesday 19 January 1994 - by Alinda

Wednesday 19 January 1994

Dear mom and dad,

Marcus was beside himself when he heard I had gotten a Firebolt for Christmas, but that Professor Snape had confiscated it to make sure it is safe. I think he went to see Professor Snape to explain to him how important it was that I would have the broom back before or next match against Ravenclaw.

When we told Hermione about the Firebolt she agreed with Professor Snape, saying my safety was more important than a broom. Draco called her a heathen after that. He’s angry at her because of it, so we are spending a little less time with her. She’s still in our little study group, but I haven’t spent time with her outside of that. Daphne told me to stop being stupid, that she’s my best friend and that she’s just looking out for me and that I would do the same for her. I know she’s right, so I send Hermione a message to ask her if she wants to hang out this coming Sunday, just the two of us, to catch up and hear about her Christmas holiday with her parents.

Lessons have started again, and Hagrid seems to be in a better mood. He taught us about Salamanders and we spend the entire lesson collecting dry wood and leaves to keep a fire blazing. Divination is crap as always. We are now busy with palmistry and Professor Trelawney told me I have the shortest lifeline she has ever seen. She also wasn’t happy with the length of Draco’s lifeline, but at least it’s longer than mine.

We also started our lessons with Professor Lupin. He still looks ill and Draco said it wasn’t that strange. He didn’t want to tell me why, but I know he and Hermione figured something out that I haven’t. It’s really annoying. But Draco says it’s not for him to tell and that I can figure it out for myself if I would just think about it some more.

Professor Lupin was a bit surprised when he saw that Draco was with me during this lesson. He chuckled a little and mumbled something about it being a miracle that Snape was right for once. And then we got down to business. Professor Lupin had brought a Boggart, sure it would turn in a Dementor because that is what I fear the most. He told Draco to stay behind me at all times, that there is no need for the Boggart to turn into his biggest fear again. And I completely agree with that, it’s no fun to see your own dead body on the floor. I still haven’t forgotten the last time and how upset Draco was for days after.

We are learning to use the Patronus Charm. It’s very highly advanced magic and he wasn’t sure if we could manage it. A Patronus is a positive force, a projection of the very things that the Dementor feeds upon, like hope, happiness and the desire to survive. To conjure a Patronus you need to concentrate on a single, very happy memory. Draco nodded and I knew he had thought of a happy memory for him. I had some struggles to find one. I was happy when I flew a broom for the first time, but I don’t think that will be a happy enough memory. And then I just looked at Draco and I knew I had a massive amount of happy memories with him. Christmas afternoon came to mind and I knew I was happy then, but I didn’t want to get a hard-on while Professor Lupin was there, so I searched for another happy memory with Draco. We had some good times flying together this summer and during Quidditch practise so I decided to focus on one of those memories.

It was hard to focus on my happy memory when Professor Lupin opened the crate that held the Boggart that would turn into a Dementor. When I was waiting I kept thinking that I could hear mom again in a second. The Dementor came out of the box and I tried to focus and shouted Expecto Patronum, but it didn’t work. The classroom and Dementor dissolved and I fell through a thick white fog. Mom’s voice was louder than before, screaming ‘not Harry, please I’ll do anything’.

The next thing I know is waking up, lying flat on the floor, Draco and Professor Lupin squatted next to me. They wanted to know if I was okay and Professor Lupin made me eat chocolate. I told Draco that it was getting worse, that I could here mom louder this time. Draco said it was okay if I didn’t want to continue, but I told them both that I was fine. Professor Lupin suggested to focus on a stronger memory, so I focused on the time Draco told me for the first time that he loves me.

But before I could another try, Draco was going to try to cast a Patronus. He would stand behind me so that the Boggart would turn into a Dementor. I felt cold and the white fog was surrounding me again when I heard Draco’s voice, so steady and certain. And then a beautiful Tiger leapt out of his wand and chased away the Dementor. Professor Lupin was speechless and I just looked at Draco and felt my heart almost burst out of my chest. Draco had done it on his first try! I kissed him then and Professor Lupin had to scrape his throat to get us to focus again. He was very impressed and told us a female Tiger was a beautiful Patronus to have. That it represents patient and protectiveness.

After seeing Draco do it so successfully, I was sure I could do it too. So I tried again. Only I fainted again. This time I could hear dad shouting: ‘lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off.’ When I woke up again I said that I heard dad and Draco hugged me close. I was crying and Professor Lupin suggested now might be a good time to stop. Only I wanted to try again. And the third time still wasn’t perfect, I only made a huge, silver shadow come out of my wand, but it stopped me from fainting, so that was a good thing. Draco said he was proud of me and Professor Lupin gave us a large bar of Honeydukes’ best chocolate to eat.

Later that evening I told Draco that even though it was horrible to hear the last moments of my parents replayed inside my head, that it was also the only time I had heard your voices since I was a very small child. Draco kissed me and told me I shouldn’t chase their echoes, that it won’t bring them back. And I know he’s right, but I kind of want to hear you both again.

I also asked Draco what memory he had used when he had conjured his Tigress Patronus. He told me he was thinking of the day I woke up in the hospital after my suicide attempt, that it was the first time I had told him I love him and that he had been so happy to get another chance with me. That even though it was a really hard day for both of us, it also was one of the happiest moment of his life. And then he said that he didn’t dare to think about Christmas afternoon and I told him I felt the same. We both laughed and kissed some more before we fell asleep that night.

Apart from the Patronus lessons, I also have a lot of Quidditch practice. Gryffindor has won their game against Ravenclaw and Marcus has scheduled in even more practice. We now train four nights a week. And I also still have my therapy sessions with Ms Davis. It’s hard to find time to do my homework. I have no time at all to help Draco with his research for Buckbeak’s trial. I ask Ms Davis how long I still need to go to therapy, that I was doing great and wasn’t sad anymore and all. But she still thinks I need to come by, to talk about everything that has happened to me in my short life. Draco says I should talk to Professor Snape about it, see what he thinks. And I think I will do that soon. I hate having so little free time.

Draco has been researching for Buckbeak’s trial all alone. Hermione also seems to have no spare time to help him. She has an immense workload. Fred and George said she sits in the corner of the common room every night, with loads of books and file upon file of extensive notes around her. She barely speaks to anyone and snaps when she’s interrupted. Draco says Hermione is insane for taking so many classes. I just wonder how she gets to all her classes. Some of them seem to be at the same time as the classes she shares with us, only she never misses any of those. So how can she go to the other classes at the same time?

And this afternoon Marcus walked up to us while we were working on our potions essay to tell me that Professor Snape almost expelled him when he came to ask about my Firebolt. Just because he had said that he didn’t care if I would get thrown off my broom, as long as I caught the Snitch first. He suggested that it maybe was time to order another Nimbus Two Thousand and One if I had the money. But I don’t think I will, I still hope I’ll get my Firebolt back before the next match. I plan to ask Professor Snape about it after every Potions lesson. I’m sure he’ll get sick of me soon enough and give it back.

I have to go now and get ready for another Quidditch practice.

Love you,

Harry James Potter.