Today’s the start of a renewed focus on good healthy habits and particularly sleep and reducing screen time. I’ve also started a new approach to caffeine this morning. No caffeine for 90 minutes after rising, instead getting outside into the morning sunshine, and also no screens for 30 minutes. I’ve heard about this approach in two separate YouTube videos recently and, as I’ve been having huge struggles with my sleep for a few months now, I think it’s worth giving it a go.
I did try it about a month ago but I felt so awful that I gave in immediately. This time I have at least gotten through the first morning! Am just now drinking my first coffee of the day. I’m enjoying it and I’ve still managed to get through most of my morning routine. I did feel a bit uncertain about what to do this morning though as I have been doing the same morning routine for yonks now, and it was based around going straight downstairs and making a coffee, going back to bed to write etc, and then repeating the coffee twice more. So it’s been quite a big departure from that but after a bit of a tantrum to myself about how this would never work, and struggling through my 1,667 words, I am now feeling a bit better after having breakfast, and am even managing to write a blog post!
I had an idea for this blog post and that’s why I’m writing it, but I’m now wondering what it was. That’s annoying. I just really seem to struggle to hold on to thoughts at the moment. But anyway, sleep has been a big problem ever since the clocks changed in March. I just couldn’t get up early any more and it really threw me somehow, then I couldn’t get to sleep at night which made things worse. Usually I really like getting up super early and whizzing through my daily tasks as quickly and efficiently as possible. I tend to get quite anxious if I don’t manage to do that. It’s long been a bit of a fight between my tasks as to which one will get priority, to the extent that when I have to run in the morning my strength training – which I would also prefer to do in the morning – often gets forgotten about altogether, or there might be a tussle between my work and my writing or my work and my running, etc.
Then what generally happens is, when I’ve finally gotten through all of the tasks I consider important/crucial, I have a bit of a collapse. I feel like I’ve earned a reward because of pushing myself so hard to do all these unpleasant things, and a reward for me is usually based around TV and iPad games at the moment. The problem is, I find those things super addictive, to the point that I may not manage to stop for the rest of the day. I could end up wasting hours of my day and end up feeling unfulfilled, guilty, behind on all the less important tasks like housework and gardening, and also just that I’m not really getting the most out of life. So then the whole cycle begins again the following morning. Get up super early, feel panicked and guilty, coffee coffee coffee, whizz through the morning routine, grind through my work and any essential errands, collapse into a state of nothingness, escaping into TV and games, and possibly sugar and wine on some days too.
It’s not really a life is it? I mean don’t get me wrong, I do manage to squeeze into that rat race a few things I’m proud of. I do like my morning routine. I write quite a lot, I study ACIM, I study some languages, I usually meditate. I also eat mostly healthy, cooked-from-scratch meals and very little processed food. I run and do strength training. I think I’m mostly a good person. I do a little volunteering. I have a few friends. I think life is not ALL bad by any means. But. There’s still that little matter of wasting as many as 6 to 8 hours a day watching TV, of playing iPad games so much my eyes are sore and red, of not being able to sleep, of looking guiltily at my garden every day because I haven’t “had the time” to spend even 20 minutes weeding, of all the DIY projects that are unfinished and make me ashamed of my house when I have visitors.
So that’s the purpose of this umpteenth life reset. I don’t feel too bad about the fact that I’ve slipped back into these bad habits again. I know why it happened. I was training a bit too hard, and worrying about the ultramarathon I’d unadvisedly signed up to. It gave me an excuse to give in to temptation. I didn’t have to do it. I could have rested by reading and I could have just done 20 minutes of gardening every other day if I was worried about overdoing it before the ultra. But I had the excuse there. And I took it.
I think I’ve just remembered what I was going to write about today – boredom. I did my ultra 9 days ago. I spent 4 days very much in recovery mode, and then another couple still very tired so not really in a hurry to get going again. But a couple of days ago I did finally sense I had more energy and was no longer just looking to get through the day watching TV and eating. So I’ve got to the point today where I’m ready to start ditching those bad habits and actually start doing some more constructive stuff again. But this weird thing’s happened. I finally have 4 or 5 weeks of nothing really happening. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to get in the way of just lovely organised, good-habits-filled days. Training, eating right, sleeping right I hope, gardening, work, writing, reading, studying, looking after my house. All great things right? And what do I feel? 9 days after doing an ultra the thought of which had been making me almost sick with nerves for weeks? Bored. Bored, I ask you! I’ve been looking forward to this for weeks! To finally having the opportunity to be bored! And I hate it! Already! On day 1 of boredom!
So I’m starting to see why I end up signing up for these crazy things. But this time I’m not giving in. Because it’s a reflex action, an impulse, a desire to not have to face up to perhaps some holes in my life where maybe some stuff is missing – better relationships, more giving back, patience and taking care of my environment and own health and wellness, for example.
So onward we go, new habits, a bit of a reset, disciplining myself to sit with boredom, face up to what’s maybe not going quite as well as I’d like it. A big part of that will be resisting the TV and YouTube whenever I have a moment’s pause. I think I’m not quite ready to ditch the TV and YT altogether so I’m saying iPad games are out but I can still watch TV and YT if I want. I don’t think I’ll want to watch them if I’m not doing anything else at the same time, so will probably just keep it for eating, exercising and maybe cooking and cleaning. It’s a start and I think out of everything probably the vats of coffee first thing and the iPad games are what’s really been affecting my sleep.
I feel like this blog is quite disconnected and I may try at some point to go back over my recent posts and do some kind of summary and try to bring them altogether.