Super song addict

Have you ever heard a song and liked it so much you just have to keep listening to it?

It’s always in your head?

You find yourself humming it absentmindedly?

You play it and then you need to play it again straight after?

You can’t listen to it without singing along?

My name’s Mel and I have a song addiction.

Towards the end of last year I was in the car with my fiancé and a song came on the radio, I of course did my classic groan and then shriek ‘Oh I LOVE this song!’

I’ve since realised how annoying I am in the car with him (I’m surprised he’s lasted 9 years+) but if there is a song I like playing in the car I have to sing to it. Well try to sing, I have an awful voice.

This particular evening he told me how annoying I am and proceeded to crank the volume up to drown me out.

The song? Don’t Let Go, by En Vogue. I’ve not heard it in years, but it brought back so many memories from when I was young and is a proper ‘hairbrush song’ (you know, when you’re young and you sing dramatically into a hairbrush some other microphone-alternative item?)

After wailing and shrieking along to it in the car I then obsessed about it all evening and proceeded to check my iPod. What?! It’s not on there?!

So I looked on iTunes.

Oh dear…I then found Greatest Hits of En Vogue and remembered some other ‘classics’. A few minutes later and the album was on my iPod!

And since? Well when my fiancé is out and I’m along on goes the iPod dock and the song gets played on loop until I get embarrassed that my next door neighbours can hear.

I then told one of my team at work about my dilemma and ended up playing it 3 times in a row whilst at work – well you’ve somehow got to brighten up all those spreadsheets!

This is not the first time this has happened, other classics I can remember are Jennifer Paige’s Crush which old Uni flatmates of mine will remember I used to play weirdly when me and my boyfriend of the time had an argument and he’d stormed off home. Ah the random things you do when young…

I also got a tad obsessed with Kasabian’s Fire for quite some time too.

I’m sure there are many others too.

So what is it that makes certain songs stick in our head and appeal so much? And why is it you feel the need to keep playing and playing and playing the song before eventually (and I’m talking a long time here) it starts to grate on you and you get fed up?

And more importantly, please help me out here and tell me I’m not the only this happens to?

Anyone?...

Is Tuesday really that terrible?

This morning as I walked along in the rain, annoyed that two cars went flying over the crossing and didn't stop for me, I was taken back to my A Level days.

Studying Sociology as one of my subjects at sixth form college, we learnt about something called the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - the idea people end up behaving or thinking a certain way if you constantly expect it of them. 

I can recall studies on children who became naughty or troublesome after their family and school teachers all labelled them as such. After a while they then started to behave and adopt traits of  being that way.

The reason I thought about this was a simple reason. Today is Tuesday.

I've blogged about it before, but for some reason for quite some time I've found on a Tuesday I tend to have a bad day. 

Even if my day seems to be going okay, later on I soon find myself annoyed or upset by something at work, or I'll have transport issues or I'll get some bad news. You get the idea.

So my default reaction this morning on having cars not stop for me and the fact it was raining on my walk to the tube station was just that. Oh typical it's Tuesday! 

I've come to almost dread Tuesdays and I think on occasion I've avoided certain things like booking important meetings  on this day of the week, just in case.

This morning I finally weighed myself and I found I've only lost 1lb in weight since I first weighed myself on New Year's Day to start my healthy eating and exercise.

What did I do? Of course, as you're guessing - as silly as it is - I thought maybe I need to re-think this day to weigh myself. Perhaps I should go back to Saturdays or Mondays like before.

I realise I've been thinking this way for quite some time now. As weird as it may seem and however slightly embarrassing it is to admit it.

For some reason this morning as I was walking I was taken back to my 16/17 year old self and I thought of Sociology and this Self Fulfilling Prophecy. 

Maybe Tuesdays aren't all bad. What if all this time I've been making them hard for myself? Could a few odd bad days have fallen on a Tuesday by coincidence and I've now shoved this label on them and am now stuck in my ways obsessing over Terrible Tuesdays? Are other days full of similar occurrences but I deal with them better because they've fallen on another day and I've not made such a big deal out of them?

So as I walked along I decided today I am not going to assume things will be bad and if things do happen I mustn't associate them with the fact it's a Tuesday.

So far so good. I'm on my break at work and although a couple of things haven't been great I'm not on some sort of downer. 

Let's see if I make it to the end of the day and if this new approach works.

Anyone else got any weird habits like this? And can it really be true you can influence your whole day with the power of your thinking?

I'll let you know... 

Fitness favouritism

I've mentioned before about my pet hates in the gym and the etiquette most people follow.

Recently I've rediscovered my love for spinning and have attended a few classes. I'm actually hoping to get back into my old routine of 3 classes a week.

Last night reminded me of 2 things. 

1. The power of the instructor and music and their influence on your class experience

2. Gym posers still exist 

It's fair to say I am quite a creature of habit and nobody will agree moreso than my partner when it comes to spinning!

He already got a telling off last night for just picking any old bike, after strict instructions to 'test them out' first.

Anybody whose done spin before will get my point, particularly in Fitness First Romford where it's often a case of bike roulette in the studio. 

You want to make sure you haven't got:

A wobbly bike

A bike where the resistance doesn't adjust properly

A bike where the pedal straps don't tighten or stay done up 

A bike where any of the height adjusters are too tight to change 

All of these points can make your class painful, frustrating or even cause injury.

Anyway, being an old 'veteran' of the classes I knew Thursday nights were run by a lady called Carmel. But as I got into the studio, met by my fiancé standing next to a wobbly bike (god forbid!) I realised there was a cover teacher.

Sometimes this can be a good thing as they challenge you more and teach you new routines.

To be fair this teacher did that. However, until quite near the end I found the class painful and admittedly rather boring.

The music in the main wasn't my sort of thing and it was so quiet. The instructor was very mumbled and so you couldn't really tell what she was saying. She also had this rather interesting approach to getting us to a standing position on the bike - whistling at us like herding some sheep (a reference I owe to my partner!)

Yet again my taking things a bit too far approach kicked in as I also found it annoying the way she kept referring to adding a gear. Most instructors refer to 'turns' and you add either a full turn, quarter or half.

Safe to say I wasn't overwhelmed by the experience and am hoping the regular lady is back next time.

The difference compared to the recent two classes I've done was huge. My legs didn't seem to want to go very fast at all, I found myself tiring more quickly and I seemed to take a long time to feel the effects in the right places (with other classes I can feel the ache in my quads, abs, arms etc straightaway).

As for the gym posers, well, I'll come back to them in another post - they need a blog of their own! 

The class last night made me think though. 

Do you get more out a class where you know the instructor and their methods?

Do you actually hold positions in the correct way if you know the teacher? And as a result get more benefit?

Or is a 'stranger' key to giving your body a shock and actually working different muscles and working you harder? 

Should you in fact go to other classes to break habit and stop your body getting too used to things? 

I'd love to know your thoughts, whether you go spinning or classes, or just generally are into fitness in some way. 

Comment below... 

Bookworm: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

I noticed someone I knew on GoodReads had marked this book as something to read and I decided to look it up. On having a quick research I came to learn as the title suggests this non fiction offering focuses on habits and everything associated with them.

Not a fan of self-help books, I wasn't looking to turn to this to gain advice on how to change my own habits, but I did think it would be interesting to find out more about why the human race act as we do.

Duhigg splits the information into three main areas - habits in our personal life, habits and business and how to change those habits.

I felt like it took me a long time to read, but this book was so interesting, I think it was where I was trying to fully understand every word that I was a tad slower than I would be with my typical fictional choices.

The author's writing style is very addictive and he is great at explaining things, particularly with the real life stories and images throughout.

Throughout I found the book really educational and fascinating to understand how habits are behind so much we do. However, when I got to the end of the book and the specific guidance on applying the book to your life I also found this useful.

This book features habits on snacking, exercising and gambling to name a few, in addition it also lets you in on how some big names have discovered and used our habits to sell their products/improve their staff - Febreeze, Starbucks and Target. It also talks about habits being used to improve performance of sports stars in the NFL, moments in history, civil rights and religion.

However, it's important for readers to understand this book doesn't really offer all the answers. I read The Power of Habit to get an understanding of habits and read something different, I didn't read it to teach me how to live my life. If you go to this book to do that I think you'll end up disappointed.

Instead I had an enjoyable reading experience, learnt a lot about human behaviour and in fact found it helped me spot patterns in habits in others and even potentially help me in my working life.

Good points
Interesting
Real life examples

Not so great
A tad cheesy/'American' at times in approach
Quite stretched out, could it be shorter and not so repetitive on points?

This book has been named one of the best books of the year in big publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times and I can see why. Although by the end of the third section I was feeling the text was a tad repetitive and the book was being dragged out, overall it was a very enjoyable read and I enjoyed reading something different.

Too much of a good thing?

This weekend I visited Winter Wonderland in London's Hyde Park. After first trying out this festive event a few years back, the visit has since become an annual trip for my boyfriend, me and my parents.

I remember our initial visit to the Christmas attraction and feeling so Christmassy I could've moved to Lapland and become one of Santa's elves there and then!

The German market full of festive food, handmade crafts and delectable drinks couldn't help but raise images of Christmas in your mind. Your tummy was filled and your hands warmed from holding mulled wine and stuffing your face with huge bratwursts.

In addition, I always go to Somerset House with a close friend of mine each December. This year we've both been a bit tied up, so on my family annual visit to Hyde Park we popped in to Somerset House first. Don't get me wrong, I don't ever actually skate! Oh no, I like to sit and sample the mulled wine or special hot chocolate in the bar and enjoy some giggles over wobbly skaters on the rink.

So, you're wondering, what's the big deal? What am I building up to here? Well, at the risk of sounding like Scrooge - again - it was a little disappointing.

I really was trying to get into the spirit of things, honest. Yet when we were sitting in the bar watching the skilful skaters and not-so-sure novices, I just felt kind of, well, nothing. I kept thinking 'oh same as last year then'.

On our way to Winter Wonderland I was wondering what we might find this year. I was also a little concerned as I'd heard how busy it was this year some people I knew has queued for 40 minutes just to get in to enjoy an elbow-to-elbow walk amongst hundreds of strangers. Others didn't get in at all. The website had warned on weekends 3-7pm were the busiest times and they had to adopt crowd control. So when we reached Hyde Park Corner and the swarms of people I was getting nervous if we'd get in at all.

Hurrah! We did make it in and without any need to queue. Walking round I found I took very few pictures (which anyone who knows me will know my obsession with photos). We also seemed to walk round the whole offering pretty speedily. The reason being? We'd seen it all before.

Whereas in past years I've felt I'm experiencing something somewhat magical, this year it seemed more like we were just at an oversized funfair. The trinkets seemed a tad like tat and there seemed to be too many people. Security men in bright yellow vests, booming 'Keep Left!' and holding boards donning the same message didn't really help to create a We heart Christmas vibe either...

So we looked at some stalls, we took a few pics and we sampled the obligatory bratwursts, Bavarian beer and mulled wine and then we decided to make a move. Admittedly it had started to pour down with rain at this point, which added to a dampened mood (and clothing!)

I've also found the same with eating out. I'm just not enjoying my food at the moment (although still eating plenty of it!) I've already had quite a few celebrations this month (meals or drinks with friends, work do, client meals and the like) and have a pretty hectic social calendar until 2012 arrives. Problem is I don't do 'in moderation', so although no turkey dinners have been consumed themselves as yet I am closely to feeling partied out. All my clothes are tight, I'm bloated out and feeling tired and we've still got 12 days until Christmas comes!

So the moral of the story is this, no matter how much you think you love something, don't overdo it. There can be too much of a good thing. Vary things up a bit, plus life's too short to always do the same anyway (brave words for a bit of a creature of habit!)

Ps SORRY it's been so long since I blogged, what can I say? I can't stuff my face and shove down wine AND type at the same time! Now if you don't mind I'm off for our annual booze cruise and meal in France...