Category Archives: Health&keeping it

Health is a big thing when you get to my age, so I decided I need to put more focus on it

Health&keeping it, Life & stuff, PR - Philosophical Rambling

Spring is here and the new normal is slowly sinking in

It´s been two weeks since my last post. What has changed? For me… not much really. I have spent the last 14 days working the standard 14-16 hour day, mostly in the office (where I was alone, receptionists not included) and 2 days from home because I was a bit sick. Since I am totally isolated with little human contact, if not counting the occasional visit to the store, greeting the delivery guy who brough lunch or exchanging 2-3 sentences with the two receptionists at the front desk, who are basically the only people on the floor.

To me it seems as if the sense of urgency (although on Friday I was worn out, I would say because of adrenaline pumping throughout the week and managing – or trying to – 7 different teams; also barely slept a few days because of my brain running in cycles) is slowly letting down, store shelves are full, nobody is panicking and stocking up for war.

And … since I mentioned it – war. What we have right now is light years away from a state of war – and it is already considered a crisis of epic proportions, but we have access to drinkable water, electricity, food and are safe, save for an occasional passerby sneezing. And even so, hospitals are far from full in Germany, which is good. Today my friend send me an interview in a Slovenian newspaper- it is with a psychiatrist who was there during the wartime years in Croatia – his views on stages of trauma and panic applied to this pandemic are very interesting and I must say I agree that we will still only start to see the social impacts of current provisions. (for all non-Slovenian readers – feel free to translate the interview via the google webpage translator, it makes for a good read). I got a taste of war when I was a kid in 1991, but in Slovenia we only had it for 10 days and it was far from having the feeling our lives would be threatened. However, we experienced war through the stories of our classmates, family members, refugees from other countries in the Balkans. I heard stories of neighbors killing neighbors, the same kids I used to play with then I was a kid visiting my grandparents in Vukovar were shooting at each other in the mid-1990s. Horrible stories, horrible experiences. Today we worry about the economy. The economy will set-up again, if always does, the question is how and how will it impact the people.

But it is the first time generations here in the EU are feeling what it means to not be able to cross borders without problems. We should keep that in mind for the future, that is how most countries in the world have it even today, or rather, had it before the COVID-19 pandemic as well. It is not a right, it is still a privilege, we should hold it dear and work on making it something available to everyone when this pandemic is over.

Jan van Grevenbroeck (1731-1807), Venetian doctor during the time of the plague. Pen, ink and watercolor on paper.

I haven’t had much contact with people in person lately, but I can say that I have established good ties with new business partners in China, from China in Germany and here in Germany and Slovenia. It is interesting how you are forced to establish trust and how much your name is worth in a referral from a trusted associate or friend. Crazy, only now the meaning and importance of good standing comes into play. It is difficult to build trust and in the mask business – there are huge challenges. There are regulatory problems, customs issues, quality issues and even understanding the market requirements and rules (i.e. what does a mask need to be when sold on the EU market). There were many hours invested in that and I am launching yet another product on the market. I have also seen everything so far in the mask business and I guess I will write a separate blog post about it in the near future. But quite honestly, there are not enough to go around world wide and not nearly enough are being produced. There is a lot of government play involved and here you can see the focus and views of many politicians. So much for a free market for all countries. The topic is so complex and long that it does require a separate blog post, one could write a novel. My involvement in this matter is one of personal satisfaction in knowing I helped provide to people and medical facilities in need. In addition to delivering and organizing I also partnered up with some smaller investors (mostly friends), rejected some bigger (because they were in it only for the money and the responsibility would be far greater with more exposure to risk) and started delivering more. My teams and I are still trying to find a way to help Slovenia and the largest (and smaller) medical facilities procure the equipment fast. But as I said, long stories, will be shared another time.

Furthermore our legal services for companies and employees are starting to position themselves on the market. We were faced with some issues, as how to provide adequate turnovers to make it economically viable, but we all agree, making it viable can wait, more important is that they are available as new laws are accepted and coordinated on the go, have many flaws, no legal practice exists and even between law practitioners – be it law makers or those in PA or private sector interpret them in various ways. The little people and small companies are often left out and have no way to clarify what it means and how it should be applied.

Based on these models we are launching the same with law firms here in Germany, here things are moving slower, but will be viable much sooner, as in Germany mindset is geared more toward trusting experts to consult you before making important decisions, whereas the belief in Slovenia is still that everyone can do everything. That is mostly why small firms and employees are losing, since they have no idea what they are doing and how they could mitigate risks and use government aid where available to soothe the impact of the economic standstill in some areas, and see the consultancy only as a cost, not as an investment into making a well informed choice.

On the business front, as I was worried we might have issues with salaries, having to abandon the idea of employing 2 more colleagues for the time being, this week has been very good, we won 5 new projects with many prospects coming to us per week, I think this number will increase more. Our clients in healthcare have disappeared for a while now, as they have more important things to do, to set up for the influx of new patients and procurement of equipment and personnel to manage it. On the other hand our legal and financial clients are knocking on our doors, first ones being overwhelmed by clientele due to new regulation, second ones because they need systems to manage financial documents with relevant parties through home office working tools. I had always expected that we are crisis resillient and this week has been my confirmation. Even though we have been able to work via home office within our company group from day 1 as we had the tools, know how and procedures it has still proven to be quite a challenge and productivity is still lower by about 15%, which is substantial, but it could have been much worse. The biggest challenge is working with clients, since they are not as familiar with remote work, but they catch on fast.

Keeping this blog post today as short as possible (because every topic I would like to delve deeper into, would need its own article, and I will certainly try to find the time to do it, also I will be able to disclose a bit more information some of which is still more or less confidential in nature regarding the progress and estimations on the outcome of events in 2020).

  • Due to lack of established channels its whatsapp
  • Due to lack of established channels its whatsapp
  • Due to lack of established channels its whatsapp
  • When online payments are blocked, some transactions need to be done via WU for small orders to be time efficient
  • What its all about, protecting (mostly) medical personnel, so that hospitals and other facilities stay at full headcount
A small taste of the mask daily business (Takes me about 4-6 hours per day with the main goal of supplying a quality product to those who need it (and fast) which is quite honestly an almost impossible task with a lot of required trust in all involved parties.

I can only share this for the moment – the stockpiling and preparations – we are only at the beginning, so we should not be lax with respecting the instructions even though bright sunny days await us this week. From some of my sources I have it on good authority, that the spikes are expected only in the 2nd half of May and the measures (although hopefully not as extreme, as capacity is built up and protocols are further develop to go on from there) will stay in place until 2021 if not longer. The same speculation runs about in the mask business, many of us see this as long term business venture, as the market in EU and US has only yet opened up. Thankfully the prices will reduce, so will the margins and availability shall become more. Once other large regions like South America, Africa, Asia will start to battle the spread I am confident there will be ways to assist different regions on a global level and that humanity will be prepared.

To finish on a wonderful and happy note, here are few suggested reads/views which I personally enjoyed today:

Mumbai – the streets of Mumbai, amazing. I would never ever in my life have expected to see the streets of Mumbai empty. It is an amazing city and I have it in good memory from my visit there, hoping to visit it soon in the coming years.

And the NY Times Article on what makes Germany an exception compared to some other countries – relevant points, but that state we should reach in all countries, so hopefully that state is only weeks, not months away for all.

And some awesome gear from the plague in 17th Century, interesting, it was all European made back then. It´s not the first time humanity is dealing with pandemic.

Health&keeping it, Life & stuff, PR - Philosophical Rambling

Another week gone by

It has been a week since my last post and much has happened. In Germany as well as worldwide. The pandemic continues and countries are beginning to undertake strict and painful countermeasures in order to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Germany started to take the outbreak more seriously and since yesterday, Bavaria is urging everyone to follow the strict rules of isolation going out only on most urgent needs. Today Berlin prohibited gathering of more than 2 people, families and households excluded, but the real numbers are only starting to flow in. In Slovenia prototype respirators have been made in cooperation of engineers, biologists, medical doctors and many companies in order to jump start local production due to 2-4 month delivery times on the global markets. Myself, I have used my contacts and resources to start purchasing face masks from the Chinese Factories and deliver to Austria and Slovenia since the shortage is extreme and everyone needs reliable supply routes. Buyers are – states, retirement homes, pharma companies, distributors, pharmacies, industrial and other companies that want to better protect their employees. European Union is ramping up production capacity as well, but it is difficult to do in such a short time.

My workdays have been 12-16 hours workdays mostly from the office (we have the whole office building floor to ourself) with my colleague, the rest of our employees are in home office or on sick leave. We try to keep up with work and productivity, although it is proving difficult, as home office and also taking care of children, family members is proving to be difficult. We are also monitoring the measures Germany is going to be providing for companies. At the moment it does not seem that we will need them as our Software and services are in demand, but it never hurts to be informed and ready. All my employment plans are put on hold, even though we have some good candidates we would like to employ. I guess we are not the only company right now that has put a stop to it.

A very good article on the Corona outbreak, mostly confirming my thoughts was brought to my attention. I do recommend you to take the time and read it, there is more and more confirmation that the world will never be the same after this as well as nobody really knowing how long the pandemic will last and how it will impact our lives. And the unknown is where fear lives. Recently I have a tab open constantly on the coronavirus reported cases globally with statistics, even though not because of the sheer numbers but because I want to have a feeling if panic might start.

My neighbor in Munich was able to come back to Germany on the weekend, they left their suitcase outside on the hallway due to concerns their family might get infected from the luggage.

The Legal services division (currently for employers and employees) is performing well, we have good visibility in Slovenia. The cases we get are horrible. Employees are being let off overnight, forced or bullied to sign resignations (which means they are not eligible to get unemployment benefits) – mostly because the employers have no idea what to do, they only know the companies stopped so they have to cut costs. Hopefully we will be able to help as many companies and people in need as of course countries are setting up countermeasures to prevent the economic collapse. Many keep working, there is no provision of personal protective equipment because of the shortages on the market. The worst thing is we often get questions what to do if they have someone who might be at risk at home (i.e. with asthma, cancer or breathing disorders) and worry they will get infected at work and bring it home. If they explain their concerns, they are often threatened by employers they will lose their jobs. Mostly people with minimum wage income, even though we are now getting cases in from other service industries as well. We are launching same products and services in Germany now, where the same is occurring, but people have more money and it is more conventional to seek legal advice before taking action. Also Germany is moving much faster in accepting legislation and countermeasures to protect its economy, even though everyone knows the fallout from this will be enormous. 150 Billion EUR have been planned to help mitigate the economic damages. Right now, not much is new, but I do see light at the end of the tunnel, the measures will work and next week I am fairly certain Slovenia will have it under control, in about 3 Weeks Germany should as well.

Recently I thought a lot about things we don’t hear about anymore – what is happening with millions of refugees at the European borders, how are poorer countries coping and do they even know how widely spread the outbreaks there are?

What will change after the crisis? I think we are all getting a lesson that global supply lines are not the best and it will make sense to look towards self-sustainable supply at least for EU and shorten the supply routes. We have become too dependent on other continents which is showing to be a huge weakness right now. How will the economies change after this has been done, will we impact the developing countries in a bad way by doing that? Most probably yes.

What is happening with the elderly, how are people coping with isolation? Will the internet infrastructure here be able to manage all the data flows (mostly from streaming in homes) – I think not, since Germany has infrastructure from beginning of 2000s, fibre optic is not really spread out here and about 5G we can only dream. How will that impact people being at home? From my friends and family in Slovenia I get a lot of information on how tough it is to be isolated and it has only been 1 week… several more to go. How will Germany’s over 80 million handle that? Will we start running out of supplies due to supply lines disruptions, will we start seeing shortages of certain products? Who is taking care of the homeless now? Very few people are walking the streets, even less of them will give a coin to a beggar. And so on… so many things that are changing and so many wrongs as well. But I think this pandemic will show us where we can improve as a global society, also how we can work together. The effort to manage the COVID-19 pandemic is a global one and researchers and countries are working together on fighting it, so a lot of good will happen as well.

This weekend Germany had a hackathon organised by the government to build solutions to help in these times. Over 43.000 people attended and build several tools that are critical in these times, that is amazing. Many people who usually wouldn’t lift a finger for less than 2.000€ per day participated for free, that is extremely positive. Estonia had an international hackathon to combat Corona as well about a week ago it was also a big success, people from over 20 countries participated. The times we live in are amazing in how we can collaborate and work together, also achieve higher goals and I can only hope that our future is not one of wearing a mask and gloves when we go about our daily business – be it because of infections or pollution. I am also very much looking to seeing the results of the world stopping for a bit on the environment. If anything the COVID-19 pandemic is showing us that the whole planet CAN and WILL take action if the motivation is powerful enough. The only issue is that global warming is slow, COVID-19 is extremely fast, that’s why its on our radar. Hopefully we learn and remember, I am looking positively towards the future and hoping that we all learn as a global society and improve. Thank you for your attention and all your feedbacks and discussions are much appreciated.

Health&keeping it, Life & stuff, PR - Philosophical Rambling

Corona – and the world stood still

1 Comment

Since the COVID-19 or Corona virus infection is becoming a global risk and more and more voices are being heard in the light of current global events, I have decided to share my 2 cents on the topic. This post is written from the following personal perspective of my situation: business owner and managing director – involved in 3 companies and several businesses (a few of them newly also corona related – 1 & 2, 3 and 4 coming this week), investor & trader on the global (currency & stock) markets, someone living in Germany and Slovenia and frequently travelling the world and a person with many acquaintances in the pharma and healthcare businesses. But most of all, someone who likes to think in a broader sense about what kind of impact a global pandemic will bring to the modern global society.

Dow Jones Stock Index - downfall
The 5 year chart of the Dow Jones Stock Index and the massive fall in the last days.

Those of you who know me well, know that I have been saying for some time now that the state of peace and well-being that we have been experiencing (especially in Europe) in the last years is something without precedent. In European history this is the first time we have peace and economic well-being for such a long period of time and it was in my opinion closely related to the economic stagnation of European economy. As a consumer you can only buy that many TV´s, couches, cars, computers and phones, after that it starts to get old. Because of that I was sceptical of the possibility of further economic growth, as all new developments are focused on the digital and services with a very low (my personal view) probability of finding or developing enough demand to be sold en masse to the average European consumer (who also is pretty worn out due to the high costs of living and slow growth of wages). But this article is not about what I have just written so far, however, it is closely related to the positions on the global markets and economies and, as I will try to explain in this post, that is extremely connected with what we will be experiencing in the following months, most probably years.

My final point was always saying that today globalization is either going to bring all nations closer together or push us farther apart. On one side we have the unprecedented ability to travel the world, meet and experience other countries, mix with other ethnicities and maybe even fall in love and start a family half a world apart. Through social media and internet people on the other side of the planet have faces, we can talk with them, interact and by taking a flight even meet them the next day. Amazing, right? The other side of the coin – the more you stir, the more entropy that will cause – I like looking at that as making a bowl of cereal. If you just pour yoghurt on it, it will take time to soak in, if you mix it however, you create a special little chaos, but after that the soaking will happen much faster and more consistent. I think we are in that chaos phase right now – we in Europe are faced with the impact of refugees from destabilized countries, hoping to find a human-worthy opportunity for a normal life. Everyone wants the best for themselves, we all want to go to sleep with a roof over our head, drinkable water, access to food, electricity, internet and so forth. But what is good for someone else is not necessarily good for us, if you step on my toes I will react. That I have been noticing in Germany as well as in Slovenia – we are selective. We don’t just accept and integrate, we push back, even though we would probably do the same in a similar situation. Today we are faced with a new situation – full isolation (for most people), because we fear for our lives. Or do we?

Global database of flights – cancellations and delays (https://www.flightstats.com/v2/global-cancellations-and-delays)

The coronavirus, I agree, is a serious matter. Mostly because flattening the curve is critical to enabling the people who need medical attention access to proper medical care (for European standards, of course). Most of us are not at a high risk even if (and when) we contract the virus. We have had the flu for an extremely long time and we are used to it. AIDS was new to humans in the 1980s, today people infected live normal lives and can also have interactions with others without infecting them, pharmaceuticals are an amazing thing and progress in the healthcare sector is amazing. The more important battle may come when known bacteria becomes resistant to publicly accessible antibiotics as there is yet substantial progress to be made in that field. However, things that are being done in gene therapy treatments, biological medications, etc. are amazing. I am certain that once it becomes economically viable our technical capabilities to combat the symptoms and causes will be accessible throughout the western world. So yes, stopping the aggressive spread caused through interaction with others is good for managing the panic and I do agree for the next few weeks reducing or cancelling events and mass gatherings makes sense and we should do it. The sooner we do it, the less it will impact the economy long term. And the economy is what worries me, each week of scare and irrational behaviour means months of economic downturn. The worst, however, what we may get out of this pandemic, is a change in the consumer mindset. That will most probably happen if the countermeasures will continue and tighten, then more people will be scared, believe in fake information and false claims which may lead to a change in the general mindset of people. This may mean many industrial & services businesses will die out, which will cause the turning of the massive economic recession wheel, turning that will not be easy to stop.

Our company in Slovenia implemented home office work for all employees. The company here in Germany – half of our employees are in home office. Not because of their so choosing, but because of circumstances – kindergartens are closed, so will be schools, there is no availability of help – parents are older, so there is a substantial risk for them if they would contract the coronavirus, child care services are not available, they are either overbooked, or completely cancelled. So parents have to stay at home. We all know that productivity will fall, as children, especially really young ones, need active attention. How this will reflect on the business is a good question. In some industries everything stopped. If you know people in event organization, gastronomy, travel, tourism, hotels and related industries (i.e. machine suppliers for bars, etc.) – ask around, you will see for them the business stopped. And it does not seem to be looking bright in the coming months. There are large numbers of people dependent on these industries and that is only the beginning. The impact will be felt throughout the market. The stock market knows that and even though we have experienced the worst crashes since the 1987 crash, I believe there is more of it to come. This downturn will not be fixed in months, it will take years.

As mentioned, the longer this lasts, the higher the chance of a new mindset being established. Although I see many positive points, as for example reduction in pollution and human impact (less transportation, less manufacturing, less energy expenditures), more social interaction in extended families and close environment, stronger bonds between people, there are also strong negative points as well.

Posted by Lignano Journal on Wednesday, March 11, 2020
The canals in Venice – because there are no boats, you will find crystal clear water. (Source FB)
In Triest sind die Delphie zurück ?

✅ Die Delphine ? sind zurück ? Sie kommen so nah weil keine Schiffe fahren ? #italia #andratuttobeneEs sind unglaubliche Phänomene, die uns durchaus den einen oder anderen Anstoß zum Nachdenken geben können ?

Posted by Lignano Journal on Friday, March 13, 2020

Dolphins are once again seen at the pier in Trieste due to the absence of ship traffic.

A change in the mindset might bring us closer together in our tight social groups, but it will push us further apart globally again. Countries will have grown apart once more and the global society will take a step back again, which I find is a relevant setback in pursuing what we might be able to achieve as a global society with common goals. Impact to economy will bring more unemployment and the requirement to implement new social systems to keep the peace – as long as people have food, safety, water and a roof over their head – they will remain placid, once that is gone it can be days if not hours when everything goes crazy. In the last few days stories were shared with me of events where people threatened people in supermarkets with guns for bottled water (!) – such events transpire due to panic short term (even without an actual resource shortage present), long term – look at Europe’s borders – failed states or rather failed economies cause massive movements. And as said before, the more you stir, the more entropy you create. This may create more economical migrations, create more hate for different nations, religions, cultures or races. So many negatives which will most probably outweigh the positives.

All in all – hopefully the preventive measures will not be required much longer for the general population and they will be over soon enough that we may start with “business as usual”. If the spread would continue too fast we will be faced with mass panic, if the time to stabilize the spread will be too long, the economy will break down even more. There is no win-win, there is just a milder lose-lose situation waiting. As in any aftermath some industries will thrive, but the general population will have it worse off. In the closing words I turn to you with the following appeal – follow the official guidelines, you will at some point in your life most probably come in contact with the corona virus, the same as you did with the flu. You will most probably survive and your immune system will defeat it on its own, the chance is extremely high, even too high to really worry about it. Do not fall for the panic, do not trust panicked news or what you read online from tabloids, unvalidated sources with no expertise. I am noticing more and more of that online, and as we all know, repeat something long enough, it will become the truth.

Do not, again, fall for that. It is difficult, even as a very well informed person, with information from the “front-line” with corona, first hand insight into economical situation (from my businesses), first hand experience from 2 countries simultaneously, am starting to get worried, which is not good. That is a natural response, nobody wants to be at risk, but it is the wrong response and it will cost us dearly. What will happen if our supermarkets will be closed for longer periods of time, do we even know how to go by with the basics anymore? The calmer we behave, the lower the chance of such a situation will be.

The better we follow the rules and guidelines, the sooner this will be under control, then we will need to worry about fixing the economy once again. Hopefully for the better, but quite honestly, probably for the worse. More people will be impacted by automation, which will probably thrive and we will need to find ways to mitigate that, maybe universal income will be a sensible solution. We shall see and only time will tell, but what I do know for certain, things will never be quite the same again.

Looking forward to your comments below (please keep a proper respectable level of communication).

Health&keeping it, Life & stuff, Living in Munich, Germany, My travels, PR - Philosophical Rambling, Uncategorized

Back from the dead and a new Category I will add to my blog

Blogging is a hobby. That is fact, and if one likes his hobby, the person takes the time to do it.

I have neglected the blogging part for quite a long period of time and will really try to not let it happen again. That I will try to solve either by preparing content in advance and posting at least every 10-15 days, I have more than enough material. So what has happened from February 2018 until today… well let’s start:

  • I turned 36 in October so I am officially middle aged in accordance with EU Commission guidelines,
  • I visited Silverthorne, Colorado, USA for a Rotary visit and a ski-trip (it was awesome and will get it’s own blog post),
  • Did a Porsche trip for CarVia Friends and Family over the Alpine passes from Germany to Italy and back through Switzerland, it was… amazing.
  • I visited Moscow, Russia – also great.
  • I cut up my hand in Croatia, learned a lot about the medical system in Croatia and luckily got my finger stitched back together by a surgeon.
  • Business started to really take off in Germany so my typical working day is 12-14 hours and I am looking to finally expand the German team to make our working hours normal again.
  • Had about 30 other experiences from Octoberfest, Conferences, Love, Disappointment, Smiles, Cries and WTF moments, all noted down and ready to be blogged about, coming soon.
  • Going on a 3 week trekking vacation in Argentina in November in the hopes to recharge the batteries for the next round.
  • Quit smoking (a few times this year).
  • Got worried about my health, possibly through stress and work combined with low levels of exercise and junk food eating regime, something I am changing actively for the last 2 months.

I have a lot of notes written down, so there will be stuff to blog about, but a special category I am adding is:

  • Taxi stories

Why? Well, about a month ago I had the coolest taxi ride of my life – it involved a random young blonde, a blind gentleman in his 50s and one of the coolest taxi drivers. I hope I will be able to describe the story, but it was amazing and inspiring. Joy of live in its purest form. And Taxi stories should be it’s own category, since, even though I never mentioned that, I ride taxis wherever in the world I am and sometimes the stories are amazing, either just the stories the taxi drivers have, why and how they to it, where they are from or what they want to do. So these I have plenty of – the crazy drugged up rickshaw driver in Udaipur in India where we needed to catch the train and it was like a Need for Speed game and extremely dangerous, but we did it to the fight with the Cuban taxi drivers, to the cool driver in Kraljevo in Serbia… plenty to tell and plenty to write about. Coming soon to the blog page near you 🙂

What I do kindly ask of you, drop me a comment below this post, having active readers makes me more active in taking the time, to write a story or two of mine, I would love a confirmation that you enjoy reading my blog. Take care, Jan

Health&keeping it

Something that got me thinking about why quitting smoking is good

This blog post I will dedicate to quitting smoking. I have smoked cigarettes since I was 14. It started off in the 1st year of gymnasium and I kind of kept on going from there. Today I am 35 years old and have been smoking most of that time. I have had periods when I have quit, sometimes just for a few weeks, a longer period was at about 25 years old, when I quit for about 3 months and at 29 years, when I quit for 6 months. The moment I heard the term “chain smoker” in English class I knew that I fall into that category without a doubt. I have an on/off switch so I either smoke 1-2 packets / day or I don´t smoke at all. There is no in-between for me and my smoking habits. In the past my main motivation for quitting was better performance at half-marathons and sports in general, but I would quit 2-3 weeks before a run a few years ago when I was running on sports events quite often. I also quit smoking for 4 months this year, on 2 January, since I simply did not feel comfortable smoking as it really started to affect my lungs and coughing.

I always remember a medical checkup I had at 30 years old, which was a routine examination paid for by the state for people. Part of this examination is also a lung capacity test. At that time my lungs were perfectly fine and being a chain smoker I had no problems running 21 kilometers run with my 100+ kilograms of weight even due to smoking. But I remember the nurse telling me that the time to quit is really now at that age, as the future with smoking does not look bright – especially because of the disease called the  Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) . you can read more about it here on this Wiki page.

So cancer is just on of the things that you risk when smoking, but COPD is a widely spread deterioration of the lungs. That means that at older age as your lungs become practically dead, you have problems catching your breath even when walking. This later on puts more strain on the heart as it needs to work harder to pump oxygen in the body and of course heart failure is often an outcome of that burden. So, definitely not a good thing.

So I started smoking again around the beginning of May this year and have been a really good chain smoker until recently. Since in Germany you can get the big packet with 27 or sometimes 29 cigarettes, I was able to off 1 – 1,5 packets a day, that being cca. 40 cigarettes daily on average. Mostly in the morning and evening hours before I would go to or return from the office.

I have quit again now, due to not feeling well and I really knew I overdid it again with the smoking. A cold finally got me and I had to lay in bed for two days, not being able to smoke (even though I wanted to as a true junkie), I took the chance to quit again. I felt much better after the first two days (as always) and I managed to push through the first week, which is usually the hardest to keep away from cigarettes. What always motivates me are the WHO (World Health Organisation) data on what happens with your body when you quit – I am always driven by small goals towards the big one – if that´s your thing as well, check the WHO statistics out here.

Ok, so far, for me, nothing new. But what really got me thinking was this. In my former company I received the FitBit Charge 2 bracelet as a parting gift from my colleagues and it measures your sleep, heart rates, etc. I keep it on me most of the time and it gets me thinking a lot – how much I move, what my heart rates are, about my exercise and calorie consumption. So changing my life broke my sports routines and I am really not living as healthy as I would like to. What really sobered me up on smoking, was the heart rate at rest that the FitBit measured. This chart told me everything and it is giving me true perspective on why I really should not start again. I am posting it below, so that you may understand what I am talking about.

So to keep it simple. My resting heart rate dropped (I quit smoking 14 days ago) from about 65/66 to 55, which is a decrease of about 15%! 15% is a lot if you look at it long term. Taking into account that I really don´t do as much sports as I would like to (but have started running and workouts again in Ljubljana and Munich) it is a huge difference. Also of course after about 10 days I usually start sneezing and coughing out all the junk that got stuck in my body from the smoking and I must say having that sense of smell and taste again is wonderful. Not to mention the feeling of taking a really deep breath without that burning feeling in the lungs or inducing a cough.

So, yes, I really hope that this was the last time I quit and even if I slip up again that I will be able to refrain myself from becoming a chain smoker once more, as I clearly am affected by smoking.

Wishing you all the best if you are on the path to quitting this expensive and senseless addiction. Keep it up, you know it´s worth it.