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PaperclipPerfector  11hr ago (text post)   186 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for June 3, 2026

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:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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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I've started noticing there's a significant difference between stream-quality music and FLAC. Dunno why I didn't use to notice. It's obvious now. Sigh. Another new personal QOL standard to follow. Now I'll "have to" download FLACs instead of just quickly opening Spotify, if I'm gonna spend more than a few minutes enjoying music.

According to their audio quality page, the free Spotify web player streams at 128kbps (which used to be standard bootleg-MP3 quality back in the day, although with those I could still hear compression artifacts), while the free mobile player by default auto-adjusts in a range from 160kbps "High" (where I can't hear compression artifacts in MP3s, but I'd bet others can) to 96kbps "Normal" (which would be awful for MP3; is it tolerable for AAC?) to 24kbps "Low" (presumably they mean this in the moral sense rather than just the numeric sense). Their Premium plan has 320kbps (at which even MP3s weren't humanly distinguishable from original CD audio) and FLAC options for mobile, though, and even 256kbps for the Premium web player ought to be good enough.

They won't let me turn up the quality without downloading their desktop app. I'd rather not. Not letting me enjoy the Premium benefits in my browser is BS.

In a little good news, I don't need surgery on my shoulder.

I tried to go straight to a physical therapist on advice from some folks here. After an initial appointment he made some uncomfortable noises and told me to go to a specialist to see how bad the damage was. The specialist gave me a once over and said that I had multiple "adhesions" in the joint, then sent me back to the physical therapist.

The treatment is interesting so far - they're essentially re-injuring the joint so that it can heal properly. It hurts like hell, but it's a good hurt. My range of motion is already significantly better.

If you're dealing with chronic pain, maybe talk to a medical specialist about it. Sometimes it's fixable.

I’m slowly but surely anticipating when the day arrives where I’m going to encounter my first real health scare. I’m not there yet (I think) but a couple friends of mine within the last year or two already had theirs that caused them to check in with their PCP.

A few years ago I randomly had an incident where I was randomly moving around things at work and as I turned and shifted to the side, I feel this sharp, squeezing pain shoot directly up my chest like it’s traveling through a vein to the left side near my heart. I immediately paused right then and there on the floor. If I tried to take a deep breath, the squeezing pain would still be there, so I just breathed normally and didn’t try taking another deep breath for about 5 minutes. After that it went away and everything was normal. Later that night I went to the ER and saw the doctor and they did a chest x-ray and did a few tests. They noticed a little inflammation and soreness and diagnosed me with pleurisy that night but said everything else is completely fine and I was in great health. Still gave me pause though.

New Year's resolution check-in:

  • Went to the gym three times last week, just cardio. Planning to go this evening. Can deadlift 1.84x my bodyweight for 3 reps, squat 1.22x for 8 reps and bench press .87x for 6 reps.
  • Have not consumed any pornography since waking up on January 1st.

How goes it @self_made_human, @thejdizzler, @birb_cromble, @ThomasdelVasto and @falling-star?

  1. Work. Paper was accepted! Avoided being put on a jury yesterday which was huge because I have a ton of work to do before I go to the UK/Germany this summer.
  2. Fitness: Did 2x tempo sessions last week and hit 54 miles (again). Hit the gym twice and sauna-ed twice too. This week planning something similar.
  3. Intellectual Stuff: Finished After Virtue which I didn't like, and getting back on track with finishing various novels to clear my currently reading. Planning on getting at least one but hopefully two blog posts this month.
  4. Finances: spent 3.3k last month and had a 9% savings rate, which is not too bad. Hoping my progress isn't wiped out by our few months of extra rent (June and July) but will just have to eat out a little less.
  5. Dating. Third date with the Brazilian girl was disappointing. We went to the gym together and then she basically ran away when the line for ice cream was too long after. A bunch of red flags also came up during the week between the second and third dates so there is not much desire for a fourth date from my end, especially as there's another girl who wants to go on a date this weekend.
  6. Tarot. No session this week
  7. Socializing: EA meetup, party and various dinners. Too much socialization once again.
  8. Screen time: 1.1 hours phone. Getting that last little bit below an hour is proving to be a big challenge.
  9. Mental health: sleeping well and feeling good.

My boy out here smashing and dashing.

Spending is $640.82 less than on this day last year. I have one more big ticket expense in July that might put me over the edge. For now I'm just going to try my best.

Yo yo doing good dawg. I'm starting to write more poetry / fiction and just post it paywalled on my Substack, which I like. Coming up on a year in the gym, got two weeks left.

I did go to the gym yesterday. First time I've attended my Scottish gym in 6 months at the very least, maybe 8 or 9. Forced myself to. Despite all the aches and the pain and the desire to drag my sorry ass home to rot in peace. Nope, if I'm getting the muscle ache anyway, might as well grow something to show for it. I'm going today too, after work. Holding myself to it.

Despite all the aches and the pain and the desire to drag my sorry ass home to rot in peace.

You have appropriate hospital shoes, right??????

Good job! But you gotta go easy the first few days after that long of a break. Weights that feel embarrassing. Otherwise you get sore as hell and need to wait to go back, which makes the habit part difficult.

Oh I wasn't away for a full 8 months, I was working out 2-3x weekly while on a prolonged vacation in India. Got the DOMS out of the way, I'm just sore because of stress. Somatoform pain hurts as much as the normal kind, it's all nerves anyway. No, it's been a month since a proper gym session, but I've been doing push-ups and swinging dumbbells even last month. Appreciate it nonetheless!

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