Runa’s Ruminations

In this episode, we tackle the mind. Throughout the past year, so many people have been struggling with their mental health. Today, Lauren and I will be talking about how exercise impacts you mentally. Exercise truly is such a powerful thing:

It can help you sleep better, decrease your anxiety levels, it can help to create structure and routine in your everyday life, and motivate you to eat right to fuel your workouts.

This is the episode for you, if you’ve been feeling demotivated to start exercising again. We’ll be touching on all the benefits we’ve experienced through moving our bodies.

This episode is a really raw and honest one. It’s a bit of a daunting topic to discuss but I think it’s important because 75-95% of women (studies vary) report disordered eating behaviors or symptoms consistent with eating disorders. Us women, we’re pretty cruel to our bodies sometimes. We compare and control. Some of us do it our whole life. It doesn’t help that there is a trend of being overly aware and healthy (Orthorexia), one that at times glamourises disordered eating. There were times when my eating habits were definitely unhealthy. In this episode, Lauren shares how weight lifting changed her mindset, and I later talk about how yoga has helped me. We both have learned to see food as fuel, and not the enemy. I hope this resonates with some of you. Maybe it’s nice to hear that you’re not alone in this.

I sat down with Lauren last week and she talked about what it’s like to do weightlifting as a woman. I was curious because I only know guys who are into it. She talks about her positive experience in the weightlifting society of the University of Glasgow but also what it’s like to weightlift as a woman in general. We then meandered into the topic of hitting the gym as a woman, feeling like everyone’s staring at you, and lacking the confidence to go into the male-dominated weightlifting section (or not, in Lauren's case). 'Gyming' as a woman truly is different to a man’s experience. It can be difficult to muster up the courage to walk around in your yoga pants with the knowledge that you’re being mentally undressed- no thank you. Anyway, we talked about both of our experiences exercising as a female, be it in the context of weightlifting or just hitting the gym in general. Probably a relatable episode… I hope you enjoy!

Someone sent in a question a while back asking:  “Is it healthy for women to have a hoe phase?”.  Right, so first I asked myself what that even means. I thought the term was incredibly loaded, unclear, problematic - there was a lot to unpack, basically. In this episode, I talk about what healthy sex can look and feel like, conversations I’ve had with girlfriends, and important lessons I’ve learned about intimacy. As always, I’m so happy when you guys send me messages privately and tell me what you think of an episode, or what’s been going through your mind. This episode is very personal. I am very open because I think it’s important, not because it’s easy. I also mention, several times, that I could be wrong and that I am drawing from things I’ve been told by friends and acquaintances, as well as my own experience. But, of course, I can't know it all. Perhaps this will speak to some of you out there. Perhaps it'll help. Perhaps it'll "un-fuck" your brain; calm some of the worries and confusions. Let me know what you think!

In this episode, I compiled some of my tips for finding a flat in Berlin. I thought of it because I was looking at places in Copenhagen and soon realised that I don't even know what websites are good or what the different areas are like. It can be so useful to get a little "crash course" on that and be spared the hours of googling. So, I sat down straight away and recorded an episode on my tips on where to look and what to look out for when apartment hunting in Berlin. This is nowhere near complete but I hope it helps! Perhaps some of you have more tips they'd like to share in a part II? I was even thinking: how cool would it be if we'd do these for different cities? Paris, Amsterdam, London, Edinburgh, Rome, New York, and so on...