Saturday, September 09, 2006

Roy: Stopping the scourge of P.E.


You all remember Physical Education class (Phys Ed) back in school, right? I recall that it was always looked upon with great anxiety.

I see they now have a drug that helps with P.E. It's about time.

I think it was the performance anxiety... where you truly measured up next to the guy (or girl, I guess... wife tells me it was the same for her) next to you to compete on strength and endurance. Who can go farther, further? Who went the longest? Could I hold out 'til the end?

It wasn't easy. Your coach, with stopwatch in hand, would yell "Go!". You'd start the race, and before you knew it, it was all over. Those days in the gym were the worst hours of high school. It was so embarrassing. The apologies. The disappointment. And I know I wasn't alone. In fact, the article says that up to a third of men had this problem.
Globe&Mail: “We tend to think of this as, ‘Oh, it affects novices, the first time, and young people,' ” Dr. Pryor said Thursday from Minneapolis. “But no. There are some people who have this who are older, and oftentimes it affects them their entire lives.”

I hadn't thought that P.E. had such a prolonged effect on folks. I guess there's a kind of P.E. P.T.S.D. And this medicine helps. This drug, dapoxetine by ALZA, helped guys' stamina "last three, four times what they were before."

Just think of how that can relieve the anxiety of whether you can hold out long enough to go the distance. In football, you'd be able to finally score a touchdown. In baseball, you'd be able to steal third base and slide into home. Playing golf, you'd finally master your stroke and get a hole in one. In basketball, this drug would help you shoot the furthest. And surely, in cricket, you could manage the most sticky wicket.

Of course, we do have to temper our enthusiasm until further studies demonstrate the effectiveness of dapoxetine. Too often, the press goes off half-cocked about the latest fad drug. Let's not be too premature. However, I've already bought stock in ALZA, because when the FDA ...

...um... what's that?

It is?

Oh. Well, that's very different.

Never mind.

6 comments:

Sarebear said...

Hee hee hee hee ha ha ha ha hee!

This post just is NOT the same if you don't click that P.E. link.

Of course, knowing my own inability to, er, well. I am not and would not ridicule anyone with a problem in that . . .

arena, to use a sports term.

Different strokes, for different folks.

And, well, I'm not unfamiliar with the problem.

Sorry for TMI. Course, with everything else I reveal in comments sometimes, I suppose that's not much, anyway.

Sarebear said...

Although I must say, I was all with at the title; they've recently decided to change all the recesses (since when did kids get more 'n one recess!) to be structured PE activities, instead of free play . . .

WHEN does a kid get to be a kid!!! Especially my, HF autistic child, for whom focusing for so long is so hard, that to let loose at recess is very therapeutic for her? When are they supposed to do the "social learning/work" that kids do, growing up, in school, if there's no free play . . .

UGH! So stopping the scourge of P.E., well, I'm all for that, even if they ARE worried the country is becoming too fat . . .

Dinah said...

I was always the slowest (or second slowest), least athletic kid and I looked awful in those bunchy blue gym suits. It got better in jr hs when we could wear shorts and T's, and in my huge high school, I specialized in changing, checking in, and leaving without getting caught (I'm not the slowest changer, though this was mildly sociopathic). Don't think my sportsy kids are anywhere near as traumatized.
Clink, I'm the delaware hit today.

DrivingMissMolly said...

Roy,

You seem to be awfully familiar with this drug.

I hope you don't suffer from performance anxiety, and that you measure up. As for being premature...well, that truly is too much information, but going from 1 minute to 3 sounds impressive. Let us here from the wife, ok?

L

http://www.dapoxetinenews.com/

#1 Dinosaur said...

Silly me. I thought this post was about some new, innovative way to prevent, identify, or save people who drop dead from sudden Pulmonary Embolus.

Interesting how abbreviations mean such different things in different contexts.

(Talk about ironic: word verification is "gymnicy")

Steve & Barb said...

I see this post was at the top of the list on Tim Worstall's BritBlog Roundup #82.
Thanks, Timmy.