7:10am
Day 1 of my one month vacation from work.
Day 1 of my journey to improve my mental and physical health.
I woke up at 5am today. Actually I woke up around 12:45am and I am not sure if I fully went back to sleep. I expected this, considering I went to bed at 9pm. And considering I’ve been going to bed around 2-3-4am in the morning. But by 5am (when my alarm went off) I was tired of pretending to be asleep.
I am determined to improve myself during this vacation, and fixing my sleeping schedule is at the top of the list. 9pm bed. 5am rise.
So I got out of bed, wondering what I should be doing so early in the morning. The yesterday me would be doom scrolling on social media in my bed, eventually get up to feed my shadow Sev, and go back to doom scrolling in my bed (or sleep) to escape all the petty worries in my life. Also… lets be real, if I had work later, I would definitely still be in bed and sleeping.
Well not today. I thought of exercising, but I wasn’t up to it. Really, it was one of those “I think I might get sick even trying to walk” kind of day. I was SO cold and it was temping to go back to my warm bed or curling up on my couch with blankets which would ultimately lead me back to sleeping…
I went to thinking “What would make me feel better right now” (other than going back to bed). Shower. HOT. Shower. So I took a hot shower and of course it was the best decision ever. Not only was I thoroughly warmed up, I also felt like a million bucks (as I do 99% of every shower). I felt accomplished for some reason. And most importantly… I felt inspired to do more today.
That was a 180 degree turn around to how I was feeling pre shower. Hot showers really do make everything better. The 1% that doesn’t is probably when I’m PMSing and nothing ever makes me feel better during that. All you can do at that point is ride out the hormonal shifts.
After my shower, I was greeted by my front neighbors living room lights (I live in a cookie cutter neighborhood where all houses are similarly shaped and we have large living room windows). It made me smile to find out that they are early risers. It made the early dark morning “less” lonely? Not that I was really feeling lonely in the first place, but it made me happy and feel warm fuzzy things, knowing someone else was also up and about.
I immediately heated yesterdays leftovers for breakfast because I was famished. It was probably why I couldn’t think of exercising. Even putting on my body lotion after my shower made me feel physically exhausted (figures since last time I ate was yesterday 1pm). Earliest breakfast I’ve ever eaten in memory, and Sev’s probably wondering what’s with all the changes (early bed time, and early breakfast… heh).
While eating breakfast, I started listening to the audible version of Indistractable by Nir Eyal. So far, I really like it. The author himself is narrating the book (I love when author’s do that especially with self-help type of books) and he is very easy to understand. He said something that immediately resonated with me:
All motivation is a desire to escape discomfort. – Nir Eyal
That made me chuckle. That’s a new and refreshing angle. I can easily translate that for today’s morning: the motivation to wake up early and do something more productive today eg: self-care (shower and journaling), was to escape the discomfort of my yesterday’s habits (doom scrolling and streaming Netflix while rotting in bed or couch). But I mean…lets also acknowledge that I think anybody would have the burst of energy to wake up early and do something more productive if there was no work for a month – All that energy spent normally for working to make ends meet, can now be directed at self-care.
Both makes sense to me. Both apply to me. I love it.
After breakfast, I did the dishes right away. I would normally put it in the sink to be dealt with later and go straight back to work. But I don’t have work. And I’m trying to develop better habits right?
A cluttered space, is a cluttered mind. – Albert Einstein
After dishes, I decided that I want to journal my progress during this vacation. I have already set up a domain and wordpress so why not? I’ve been slowly… ever so slowly… creating a space for myself on the internet to start content creating. Because it looks kinda fun and I think I can be good at it. My initial goals were making short form contents for instagram, tiktok, and youtube. But that just sounds way too overwhelming with my current state of mind. I’ll quit after 1 minute of attempt.
So journaling (blogging) it is. Plus journaling is self reflective and focuses more on your thoughts and feelings. Therefore, therapeutic. And blogging is easier than manually writing. And software programs like wordpress provides resources like themes, archiving, organizing, and… putting myself out in the internet. Thus:
Hello World. I’m Kim. I have generalized Anxiety. My current strongest triggers come from work. I’ve been anxious ever since I can remember, I just didn’t know the feelings, worries, mental issues, and physical symptoms I had as a child were stemming from anxiety. So I guess for a while, I’ve been in denial. Mostly because of ignorance, and partly because after I did knew better, I really thought it wasn’t a big deal, everyone deals with this to some degree (is that why you are here?) and that I could handle it on my own. Pft. Who needs therapy.
Until… it starts to seriously mess up your life.
So here I am. Writing the progress of my journey to improve my mental and physical health.
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