Published on 12, July, 2020
Inspired by another thread :-) After spending a very long time thinking that I’m quite good at self care (because I do always eat clean and ensure that I get enough sleep) and assuming that I didn’t need to make any changes to my habits to improve my self care, on reflection I concede that I was wrong. There are many things that I could and should change in order to improve my self care. For example: I drink far too much coffee and not enough water; I don’t really exercise (difficult to fit it in going to the gym with my youngest being only 2 but I figure that I can walk/find exercises that I can do at home); I don’t plan my week out past the basics and I feel that my life would run a lot more smoothly if I micro-managed my life a lot more. So, I am going to read and research self care and make changes to my life that enable me to take care of myself to a better degree. I shall use this thread as a ‘blog of sorts’ to post useful resources that I find; write any tips that I perceive may help others and generally report on my progress. I would like to invite others to join me. To share their own resources/tips on self care; to come on their own ‘improve self care’ journey with me or even just to participate in discussion on this thread.
So just to start off. As of the last two days, I have reduced my coffee intake to 2 cups of coffee a day (I will reduce further in time but I am so addicted to caffeine that I need to reduce slowly); been making an effort to drink a lot more water (not difficult when some days I was drinking zero pure water and my only liquid intake was coffee) and been ensuring that I do at least 10 minutes of ‘brisk’ walking per day (I have found in the past that exercising and improving my cardiovascular health as a consequence of that exercise, is the only thing that gives me the boost in energy that I always seem to think I’m going to get from a cup of coffee).
If you have trouble with caffeine causing insomnia sleep problems because you drank coffee too late in the night, you can try replace it with hot milk, or what I prefer hot chocolate milk - it actually works almost immediately for me. Remembering to drink water for me is a hard one, because I get fixated and am highly focused when working and forget to drink water, even if I am dehydrated, by which point it's 4am.