The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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It's been a pretty miserable winter. Not many available hours at work means more time to be depressed and introspective. Things are picking up again this week though, which is nice.
I'm starting the Deep Water program at the gym. I'm also back squatting again after months of avoiding it, and only getting tightness in my lower back instead of pain, which is good.
Eczema is bad due to the weather. I get it on the insides of my elbows, but the worst is my left hand and wrist, which have some fairly ugly dry skin and minor scabbing.
I've had some mild eczema issues. Here's a few things that have worked for me, not sure if you've tried any:
I think the root cause of it being worse in the winter is spending time in heated places which are inherently low-humidity. Setting up a humidifier powerful enough to get the humidity up above 50% or so if it isn't already may help. As may a humidity gauge to see what it actually is in the spaces you live in.
Mild Corticosteroid cream seems to help quite a bit, including the OTC hydrocortisone. I found this site that lists all of the varieties and strengths of them. A prescription for a Class 6 helps a bit more and seems to be mostly harmless for routine use or as needed.
I live in the UK, so I don't know if a lack of humidity is the issue. I've tried hydrocortisone in the past, but it tends to just make the area even more inflamed and even painful.
It may be worth getting a humidity gauge for your living space. Islands and coastal areas usually have decently high humidity outdoors in all seasons, but if you heat a space more than 10-20 degrees C, the humidity in that space will be substantially lower unless you deliberately add more water.
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