Healthy habits of manager of Google Natasha Rostovtseva
IN THE RUBRIC "LIFESTYLE" we ask different people about healthy lifestyles with a human face: talking about the importance of taking care of yourself and pleasant ways to make life more comfortable. The heroine of the new release is Natasha Rostovtseva, Google's business development manager in the publishing industry.
It's very important for me to spend a few hours in the morning. in silence, so I often just lie in bed and chat with my sister, we tell each other about our mood and wish you a good day. Then I go to walk the dog, have breakfast, take a shower and go to the office by bus. The road takes about forty minutes, the bus is usually half empty, and this is also my personal time when I have time to read a book or exchange messages with friends living in other countries.
in the morning I try at least half an hour devote to physical activity. The simplest options are: walk around a small lake with a dog or work out with a crossfit at home. My colleague moved to Mexico and left me a team of dumbbells and a weight, so that I can train, even if I have only fifteen minutes.
I need physical exertion to feel good. In winter, I like to run in the woods a couple of times a week, so I try to regularly sign up for the Paris half-marathon in March to do it for a reason. In the summer it is much easier to get up early, so with the transfer of hours I have a period of strength training. And at any time of the year I try to walk a lot.
I started to run, even when I lived in Moscow, therefore, in Paris, I found an apartment across the road from the Bois de Boulogne: to jog around the lake it is enough for me to cross the street. At work, I have to communicate a lot with people and process a huge flow of information, so running for me is an opportunity to disconnect and be alone with myself. The ideal distance is eight to ten kilometers. During this time I manage to make a circle in the forest, wait for the required dose of endorphins and gain strength to go rolling mountains.
In 2014, I severely injured my foot and could not run, Why quickly climbed on the wall and began to look for an alternative. I tried yoga, but I was always bored with it, went to the climbing wall with a friend, but somehow it did not go. Next to the office is a crossfit room, I came to the test session and unexpectedly fell in love with power loads. I went there for a year, I mastered the technique of exercises with a trainer, and now I study on my own in an office gym or at home.
the office has a well-equipped gym, there is a regular coach on duty with whom you can consult. My colleague, who is fond of triathlon, goes in for lunch, and I prefer the morning. I try to eat in a balanced way, since a person with any diet can find a suitable lunch in our canteen - there is even a counter with gluten-free bread.
I have a polycystic ovary since adolescence so for many years I have taken oral contraceptives. In 2010, I was offered to change the drug, and I was among the women who have depression on his background. At first I thought I was upset about the work environment; started two dogs, stopped working late, first started running. Then I caught myself on the fact that I had been living in a gray kissel for a year and nothing at all was able to lift my spirits, even the jogging stopped helping.
Then I went to the doctor, and I was diagnosed with depression, which at that moment no one associated with contraceptives. I drank two courses of antidepressants, but every time the state of the jelly returned. Already in France, I managed to figure out the cause of depression, I no longer use hormonal contraception, I was prescribed supportive therapy, and the world began to play with new colors. No antidepressants made me so happy with life as corrected hormones.
I went through all the stages: previously worked in advertising, led a very unhealthy lifestyle and had no idea how much I weigh. Then she left for the USA for two years and immediately bought a scale, frightened by stories about how everyone instantly gains ten kilograms. It turned out that I already have something to work with: during the Master's program I thoroughly studied the theory, in what my medical education helped me, I lost weight and since then I know well what works for me and what does not.
I, fortunately, managed to do without strong neurosis about your body. I never sat on rigid diets, rather experimented with nutrition and looked for a suitable option for myself. One time I was stuck on the weight, but in time I realized that the level of my happiness never correlated with the figure on the scales. But I learned to choose the things that go to me, and even in the days when I turn into a bubble, I like myself.
Due to hormonal imbalance i need severely limit sugar and eat complex carbohydrates regularly; otherwise insomnia begins, it is difficult for me to concentrate, my mood deteriorates. So the only thing I seriously scold myself for is when I forget about the diet, and then I go with a gray face.
I recently confessed to myself which I don’t like to cook at all, a maximum I can pour boiling water over oatmeal or boil hard boiled eggs. In exceptional cases, if at work you did not have time to eat complex carbohydrates, I cook buckwheat or pasta from brown rice. In the fridge I have fruits, vegetables, light-salted salmon and kefir.
For the last two years I have been drinking a couple of glasses of wine a year, because in the morning I clearly feel the negative effect. My mood deteriorates, my head aches, and I don’t want to move at all. I don’t like to spend time feeling unwell, so the absence of alcohol in my life is not a limitation for me, but a concern for myself.
Sleep is the most important component quality of life for me. I need a little more than eight hours a day to function normally, and I am adjusting everything to the ability to rest normally. I go to bed at about ten in the evening for a long time, and last year I live without an alarm clock: it turned out that I sometimes need fifteen or twenty extra minutes to wake up on my own and fully rested. I have never slept through anything.
I am a classic perfectionist and workaholic and for five years of living in France, I understood how this prevents me from living. So new useful habits I choose on the basis of whether I will enjoy them. I decided to transfer the sport from the category of obligatory to the category of pleasant and made a list of different things that I can do in order to regularly move and feel good. The dog helps a lot: even if there is no time for anything, in the evening you still have to go for a walk.
On the recommendation of a doctor two years ago I had to abandon hormonal contraceptives, and I opened a brave new world of cyclical fluctuations of hormones. I still learn to live with the fact that some days I get more tired and my mood deteriorates. My endocrinologist told me about this: "No need to fight PMS, you just need to take more care of yourself these days." This is a very French approach to life, even Gharans Dore has recently made a podcast on this subject.
On the day of my thirtieth birthday I flew to study in Singapore, whence she moved to france. My real youth began on this day and will continue forever, since in Europe they look at the age in a completely different way and no one thinks in the category “have time to do”, as in Russia.
I love my age, my growing up and the way I change every year. Life reminds me of character pumping in a computer game: every year is a transition to a new level, you have new tools and opportunities, you regularly become the best version of yourself. It is very exciting.
Taking care of myself is my priority. It is enough to ask the question: "What is best for me at the moment?" If the answer is: "Lying with the dog on the couch," it means that I will roll with the dog on the couch.
I am an introvert and every year I feel it more and more. For unloading, silence and a sharp reduction in the flow of incoming information are important to me. If I need to recover, I take a dog and go for a walk in the forest, and in good weather I can take a car and rush to Normandy on the beach.
It helps me to look at beautiful things. For several years in a row, I have issued a subscription to the Paris Opera and bought tickets for the year ahead. This allows you to go once a month to the ballet and opera for reasonable money. Three hours of beautiful music and choreography, and I go out as a new person. And if the next performance is not soon, you can always go to the museum for at least half an hour.
