Collab #7 - Indoor Air Purification

The Sansevieria, also known as "Snake plant" or "Mother-in-law's Tongue" is a succulent that is quite common in Trinidad. Who knew that it could have amazing potential as an indoor air purifier.

NASA conducted a 25 year study of this same plant you probably had growing in your yard since childhood. They found that it has an excellent capacity for absorbing 107 unknown air pollutants including carbon monoxide and nitrogen monoxide. Another study by Wolverton Environmental Services found that it also absorbs formaldehyde, chloroform, benzene, xylene and trichloroethylene. Indoor air pollutants can cause a wide range of health risks such as skin irritation, eye irritation, dizziness, weakness, headache, nasuea, blurred vision and respiratory diseases.

Many studies have proven that Sansevieria not only absorbs indoor pollutants, but also can eliminate bad odours. New furniture, varnish, fresh paint or old carpeting are just a few of the typical odours that a pot of mature Sanseviera can help rid you of.

For our final collaboration Brigitte brought me a pot of this long blade variegated variety of Sansevieria. I've had it in my kitchen for around a week now and I can definitely say there is a noticeable difference.It looks really cool in the kitchen and goes really well with my other kitchen plant, a ground orchid, which looks very similar to the Sansevieria. Perhaps it too has unknown health benefits!

Check out Brigitte's post for more info on this amazing plant.

How to deal with stalling

You've been making great progress. You're strength is increasing and you know because the numbers don't lie. Life has gotten a bit more hectic these past few weeks. Assignments are piling up. You're awake late at night trying to finish up projects. You're barely getting enough sleep to make it through the day. you're eating junk and have no idea where you are calorie-wise(surplus/ maintenance/  deficit) Finally you get off work and its time to go to the gym. You're totally unmotivated. you're physically and mentally exhausted but you drag yourself in anyway.

You struggle through your warm-ups and are actually scared to get under the bar with your work weight on your first set of Squats. You manage to push out 5 but they felt super heavy. Your next set you get 5 and then on your third you get stuck at the bottom having only completed 4 reps. You've stalled on your set.

You know what you need to do when you stall is to repeat the workout with the same weight next time. This is the recommendation to deal with stalling in the gym but its not the real solution.

I've been struggling with this exact situation the past two weeks. In fact after I stalled horribly a couple weeks ago I haven't been able to make it back to the gym regularly. There are so many assignments due all at the same time I cant even the few hours per week to go workout.
Sure there are those who will say I'm just looking for excuses to be mediocre. I'm not asking the right questions or finding the right solutions.

What could I have done to not hit this plateau? In the ideal world where I didn't have a million assignments and a demanding job I would have recommended the following:

1. Eat - You need to keep track of your eating in some kind of way to at least know if you're consuming enough protein and eating enough food to recover from strenuous workouts.

1. Sleep - chronic lack of sleep severely impacts and impairs recovery. It kills your motivation and makes you tired and weak. The old recommendation of 8 hours still holds. Try to average 8 hours per night, 9 would be ideal!

1. Prioritise - adding other exercises or switching up workouts does not help you get through the first 12 weeks of stronglifts without stalling.

There's always the sacks of sand and concrete block solution

I haven't been able to keep up with any of these recommendations. As a result, I stalled and am severely lacking motivation. Just a couple more weeks until the end of the Semester. Hopefully I'll get some free time back and I'll be able to hit the gym more regularly again. Look forward to updates on my progress when I get back in.