Three weeks ago I was feeling a little bit… January.  I might just have plucked the name of that condition from nowhere, but the symptoms are decidedly recognisable: sluggishness, lack of energy, dull skin and a near-constant desire to huddle under the nearest duvet and watch Judy Garland films in the middle of the day.

Unfortunately, my current schedule does not permit daytime sofa nesting (more’s the pity, right?).  So in a bid to combat my start of year lack of lustre, I began to do two other things instead: the first was to start swallowing a multi-vitamin tablet everyday, and the second was to take up drinking pro-biotic yoghurt.

Now let me be clear on this.  I don’t generally buy into health fads.  Besides the weighty streak of good old-fashioned Scottish scepticism that pulses through my veins, I read Bad Science a couple of years ago and drew my own conclusions about the “healthy living” industry, many of which were firmly rooted in cynicism.  I’m also wary of buying anything health-related that’s advertised on a “purchase and feel amazing” basis.  The packaging is always a dead give away with these things.  If it features a lithe, tanned model with disturbingly white teeth doing some kind of fist-pumping “I FEEL AWESOME” victory dance, I’m usually walking away.  Let’s not even think about the perma-tanned, disturbingly white-toothed family, where the kids look creepily similar in age to the parents and they’re all facing the camera with glued-on smiles and glassy eyes.

Having said that, I’m not against giving things a go.  Someone told me recently that the Finnish Government actually recommends that its citizens take Vitamin D supplements in Winter to combat the adverse effects of there being so little sun around.  And I also recently read somewhere that taking pro-biotics can help to strengthen your intestinal wall, meaning that toxins and other bad stuff finds it harder to get into your blood stream where it can wreak havoc with your skin.  Worth trying, at least.

Furthermore, and this is actually something I do happen to believe in, there’s the placebo effect.  I may be a cynic when it comes to some things, but if an act as simple and as ostensibly harmless as popping a multi-vitamin every morning helps me to believe I’m feeling better, then what does it matter if in actual fact it’s having no effect on my physical health whatsoever?  Multivitamins cost a fraction of a pence each, they don’t taste offensive and as far as I’ve read there are no adverse effects to result from taking them.  Ditto pro-biotics, which admittedly are a lot more expensive (but which taste delicious!).  So my question is this: if it’s not actively bad for me, who the hell cares that the benefits might only exist in my head?

It goes without saying that it’s nigh on impossible to tell what the real effects of pro-biotics or vitamin supplements are.  And a simple Google search for ‘Vitamin D’ quickly reveals that the internet is no place to find a straightforward solution.  Everyone and his best mate seems to be on his soap box on some health forum somewhere, and the number of people singing the praises seems pretty well balanced against the number of people scaremongering about conspiracies, corruption and corporate greed.

I suppose in the end it all comes down to how you or I as individuals feel about these things.  I have felt better since I started popping pills and drinking bacteria.  I feel less bloated after meals, which could be because the yoghurts are helping out with the business of digestion.  My skin is smoother and brighter, which could be because all that vitamin D is taking its toll.  Or it could just be that I’m feeling good because it’s finally not January any more.  The flipping of a page on the calendar perhaps has a greater effect on me than I’m aware of.

The bottom line is, I don’t know.  I don’t think anyone does.  As long as I feel OK, however, I’m not really sure that it matters.

What’s your take on vitamin supplements?  Pro-biotic drinks?  Pro?  Anti?  Indifferent?

Image above from here.

So it’s February!  And, as is usually the case at this time of year, it would seem that approximately half of the blogging world is involved in some kind of project, whether it’s outfit posting, writing about the little things in life, or simply taking a photo every day and sharing it.

In line with my abstention from making New Year’s resolutions, I have decided not to hop onto any monthly challenge bandwagons in 2012 (I am, however, reading everyone’s updates!).  Instead, I will attempt to proceed just as normal: read more books, have more adventures, live as fully as I can (the latter is meant both in a big picture – travel, career, love, philosophy – and small picture – “OMG just bloody well IRON your favourite pencil skirt so you might actually be able to wear it!” – kind of way).  I will make pancakes on the 21st though, that much I can guarantee you…

I’m also attempting this year (and every year since I came across Eckhart Tolle for that matter) to focus on what’s happening now and what I can do about it, rather than on what might happen in the future and what I might or might not be able to do about it then.  And on that note, while I will wholeheartedly embrace Spring when it arrives, I’m not going to wish my February away, or hide from the fact that it’s still Winter, still cold outside and still dark far more than it really needs to be.  Imperfect as it may be, the reality is that life is happening now.  In February.  In the cold, in the wind, and in the dark.  This month I’m going to put an extra base layer on, get out there and do stuff.

Image above from here.

Absolutely love this, mainly because it captures my Monday morning state of mind so perfectly (the dog on the right, not the left, that is).  Happy start of the week everyone – let yours be blessed with caffeine and full of other good stuff too.

Image above from here.

This weekend I’m visiting friends, so I expect to be working on more tea, more laughter, more dreaming and more fun.  Not so much on the more sleep, but there’s always next week!  Happy Fridays everyone.

Image above from here.

I find I get the most out of writing Things I Love Thursday posts when it feels like my Thursday hasn’t really been all that brilliant.  Like today, for example.  A couple of awkward moments at work were followed by a couple of near-misses with buses and taxis on the way home, a shouting match with a pedestrian who was clearly unaware of the green cross code and (to my shame) a bit of post-confrontational sobbing.  Hmm.

But behold!  It’s none other than the re-emergence, through the emotionally cleansing practice of positive blogging, of all the good stuff in my life on this one day that I would quite possibly have completely ignored had I not paused to write about.  Praise be to TilTing, blogging and generally being so very thankful.  Here’s what’s ace about today:

The fact that I even have a job to feel awkward about sometimes.  And a job that 98% of the time I feel positive about at that.

The financial freedom to be able to buy whatever food I think will put a smile back on my face when my day has been less than perfect.  Tonight that tonic was falafel wraps with guacamole, coriander, yoghurt and cucumber.

These headphones, which I bought a couple of weeks ago and have hardly had off of my noggin since.  Benefits: they are comfortable, they keep my ears warm and I am spared the rather unnatural and fairly gross process of jamming something hard and plastic into my ear every time I want to listen to Arcade Fire.  I’m in love.

Crap from the street.  I found an abandoned book case sitting out in the rain this evening as I arrived home after the cycle from hell.  I’ve been pining for a place to display my books for months now and this was too perfect an opportunity to pass up (it was also proof that good, and sometimes free, things come to those who wait because they are stingy).  I’m going to spend some time this weekend making it look pretty and arranging my books by all sorts of order like the nerd I am, but I’ll share a photo or two afterwards.

New people!  My flatmate is in Antarctica at the moment (I KNOW), so I’m getting new living space company for the next couple of months.  I can’t wait to have someone to offer my banal, uninteresting post-work chat to again – the past few weeks I’ve had to resort to talking to myself, which is but the first step on a very slippery slope, I think.  And finally…

My Bed.  It’s warm, it’s comfortable and no matter how bad any day becomes it will never be too long before I can pile it high with blankets and burrow in until the storm blows over.

Now you!  What’s making you smile this Thursday?

Image above from here.