Random thoughts have been passing through my head since I started this blog, so I decided to organize them in a post of topics. I tried to categorize the potential monthly topics into logical sections. You’ll see below sections on religion, nutrition, exercise, and personal. Personal is just a category that I through all of the ‘no category’ topics into.
My most recent idea is that I can potentially try out more than one topic per month. Maybe even one topic from each category per month. However, while thinking this through I decided that I could run into trouble detailing where specific feelings and behaviors are deriving from. My life seems hectic enough without being a guinea pig to religions, health, and exercise all at the same time. I think I would be taking too much on my plate if I tried multiple ideas at the same time. Who knows though maybe I’ll decide it could be a good idea.
Enough blabbering, here is the list!
Religions – Of course not an exhaustive list of religions by any means, but I do have listed most major religions and those of particular interest to me. You will notice one major religion absent and I probably don’t even have to mention it because it is so glaringly obvious…Christianity. I will not be exploring Christianity in a monthly challenge (at least in the near future) because this is the religion that I was raised on and also the religion that I know the most about. Here is the list as it stands now, but of course I may change it due to my life’s needs and requirements.
- Buddhism – I don’t know much about it but I have always wanted to learn. As with most religions, I’m sure that movie portrayals of Buddhist monks are either inaccurate, exaggerated, or only a small percentage of the Buddhist religion as a whole.
- Islam – I know it is the second largest religion in the world, but that is about it. Kind of strange that so many of the world’s people can believe in something and yet I, western culture born and bred, have little if any idea of what Islam involves.
- Hindu – Please correct me if I’m wrong as I have yet to do research on these religions, but I believe Hinduism is the largest Polytheistic religion in the world. That is if you can swallow that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one entity argument…
- Wicca – Probably the least understood religion on this list, although I’m sure Scientology is not far behind. Perhaps also the most stereotyped, I would like to research, understand, and follow this religion for a month just to see what it is about. My limited knowledge comes from a TV program several weeks ago that followed a Wiccan family through their everyday lives. It seemed believable enough as a ‘real’ religion, but was foreign to me in the way that they practiced it. It didn’t seem to involve any broomsticks that I could tell.
- Scientology – This one seems to be the ‘hip’ religion if you are in the entertainment business at the moment. I know nothing about it, which is precisely why I want to try it
.
Nutrition – As I mentioned earlier, I am already a vegetarian so nutritional and diet experiments involving meat are off of the table, but that still leaves a few more topics of interest. Of course the simplest to think of was becoming a vegan. Once could call it an extension of [vegetarianism] just more limiting. Logically, this also lead me down the path of thinking about becoming a [raw foodist]. Other than these total diet changes, I thought of several smaller diet changes that most would consider to be healthier. Take a look.
- Vegan – A vegetarian diet that does not include any animal products whatsoever. I am undecided whether to follow the lifestyle changes that come with becoming a vegan. This would mean no leather products, which would mean I need to buy a new belt and new shoes!
- Raw Food Diet – An extension of a vegan diet in which foods cannot be processed over a certain temperature. This diet is considered healthier by its followers because of the belief that cooking foods reduces their nutritional content. Becoming a Raw Foodist would be quite a change from my current diet.
- 5 Fruits/Vegetables per day – A smaller change than the previous topics listed. All I would have to do is track my fruit and vegetable consumption each day to ensure that I have eaten the necessary allotment. Not sure whether this would mean 5 servings or 5 different types of fruits and/or vegetables per day. A subtle but meaningful difference.
- No Soda/Sweets – Something I have attempted to do before but I always fall off the wagon eventually. Reducing my depency on sugar and soda may have an interesting effect on my sleeping patterns…
- Drink only water – By this I mean I could still eat whatever selection of foods I choose, just the only liquids I could consume would be water. It would be tough to pass on Silk with my cereal though.
- Fad Diets? – This topic is up in the air. Generally I don’t believe fad diets to be heathy and plus they may not coincide well with being a vegetarian. However, I’ve always been interested in the effects of changing to such a diet so that is why this is listed here.
Exercise – Of course, this is the category that I started with in my monthly challenge of [daily running]. My main concerns in this category are overtraining since I will be taking on new activites that my body isn’t used to and doing them repeatedly for some time. I’ll have to be very careful.
- [Daily Running] – This is the monthly challenge that I took on yesterday for April 2007. I did not set a firm amount to run each day so that I can listen to my body’s reaction and exercise accordingly. Hopefully each daily amount will be over two miles and increasing by the end of the month.
- Daily Pushup/Situp Amounts – Not a monumentous task to undertake, but potentially challenging regardless.
- Yoga or Pilates – I don’t know much about either one but they seem to be all the rage lately. Not sure I’d feel comfortable taking an actual class so if I go through with one of these it will likely be following instructional DVDs.
Personal – The category for topics that don’t fit in other categories.
- Journaling – Keeping a daily journal is something that I have never attempted. I’ve always wondered if it would help me organize my thoughts or think my way through problems. Could be an interesting experience.
- Dream Diary – I did this once for several weeks in high school for a psychology class. It had interesting results for me and I’d like to see if I can repeat them. Supposedly, the more you document your dreams, the easier it should be to remember them. For me it was the opposite though. I remembered far less dreams at the end of the journal than at the beginning.
- Document Time Spent on activities – I envision this as a pie chart detailing where I am spending most of my time each day. I figure that right now I waste about 15 out of my 16 daily waking hours on frivilous crap. If I complete this challenge, I should be able to determine how to better manage my life.
- No TV – Television seems to basically be a waste of time. You don’t really gain anything from watching it and your mind barely functions unless you are watching Jeopardy. This would be tough for the first week because I’m not sure what I would do with all that extra time.
- Reading time amount daily – Another item I’ve always thought about doing. I’ll set an amount of time that I must read everyday. As long as this doesn’t interfere with my studies or keep me up all night, it could be quite fun.
- Polyphasic Sleep – I read about [Steve Pavlina's journey through polyphasic sleep] and it really interested me. Maybe enough so that I’ll give it a try.
- Fasting/Cleansing – Obviously I would not start out with a 1 month fast or cleanse. These things probably need to be worked up to, but still something that I am interested in trying.
Well, there you have it. My ideas all down on ‘paper’. I’m sure some people have feedback about this list, especially the religion section. Before you hound me with flames, please realize I was only sharing my preliminary knowledge of the subjects which may or may not be correct. That is why I will research and practice the religions for a month…to become better informed and more worldly.
