Sunday 28 July 2019

Brain rebooting

I struggle to focus my brain a lot of the time - it's very easy for me to get lost in tangents. One thing I've really noticed helping me is making sure to 're-set' myself to start my day.

I know dreams are meant to be the brain's way of processing data taken in from throughout the day, so maybe one reason why I have more focus issues is my insomnia cutting down my dreaming time? Sounds kinda believable, but... pretend I placed a shrug emoji here.

Re-setting my brain isn't a guarantee of success, but it does up my chances. I don't think the things I outline below will necessarily work for everyone; we each probably have our own highly specific re-set switches we need to hit. Nothing in mine is particularly outrageous, but, sometimes I've read about other people's morning routines and thought 'that sounds ridiculous' or 'i tried that and it had the opposite effect on me' so - take all this with a grain of salt. Maybe even ten grains.

What I find works for me is as follows. Generally in this order, but it can change day to day depending on other factors:

A warm drink in winter, and either a warm or cold one in summer

For me, this is usually coffee. I honestly can go weeks without caffeine and I'm fine, I don't seem to really have a dependence on it. But something in my hands while I deal with being awake is good. I'll probably play a mobile game and fuss over my cat while I drink.

Shower

I think this one would apply to most people. I feel more alert after a shower, and just less lethargic in general. I bet cleaning my teeth in the morning would help with that too, but then it'd make my coffee taste awful, so...............

Dress nicely and Do Face Stuff

I think everyone knows at this point the psychological effect of changing clothes/wearing 'work' outfits. It's like a mini shower. And the Face Stuff is just doing basic grooming things... apply tea tree gel to any pimples, apply toner, serum and moisturiser... just basic skincare routine stuff. Like another mini shower for my brain.

Don't check social media until you've planned your day

I used to check my Twitter TLs and discord when I got up in the morning, kind of like the millennial version of reading the morning newspaper, but I stopped doing that several months ago and it's helped a lot. Checking my social feeds just introduces too many variables and ideas into my brain before I've had a chance to mould my expectations for the day.

Update my 3-year diary

I have a Midori 3 year journal. It has space to write 2-5 sentences about your day per page, and you share the page with the entries for the same day on the other two years. I started keeping it early this year and I'm interested to see how it goes. Writing a couple lines about the day before definitely helps my brain. Somehow.

Read my weekly plan

This is different to the day planner I post photos of here. I have charts on my wall for tracking my goals for the year, my goals for the month, and my goals for the week. It's kind of an excuse to have lots of cute stickers, but look, it works. 

At the start of this year I filled out a Kikki K 10 year planner (similar to this). I also then broke my goals for the first year into 12 month blocks, which became my yearly sticker chart. Then at the start of each month, I check the yearly sticker chart, and make a monthly one. I make a weekly checklist at the same time. It's the weekly checklist I review at the start of my day. I grab a couple tasks out of it and put them into my work planner (not posted here) and my daily planner (the one I post here). There's a lot of overlap between those two, but the work planner tracks my Big Project Tasks and my daily planner is more a 'don't forget you have an appointment, need to do laundry, and need to do a task for Big Project 3'.

This is a system I've evolved over the last two years, and it works for me, but it may or may not work for you.

Re-set the house while listening to a podcast (must have at least two presenters)

This means: put away dry dishes. Sort out dirty ones. Put on a load of washing. Take anything still on the floor and put it away. Make sure working areas are free of clutter. Open the curtains. Basically, make a working space that feels neutral (as a freelancer, I work at home).

Podcasts (the need for two presenters is so that I'm listening to a conversation, not a presentation) give me some Social Energy that makes me feel comforted while I'm setting up my space for the day, without distracting me the way social media posts would.

Do one small task while listening to isochronic tones

This would be something like: send out invoices, reply to business emails, write weekly blog post etc. type of tasks. Very simple things that don't require high levels of skill. The isochronic tones seem to help smooth down the edges of my thoughts. Lately I've been using this video a lot as my bgm.

Once I've achieved that last thing, generally my brain is in a much more positive and focused state than it would otherwise be. So after this point, I can start tackling harder tasks!

One thing I struggle with is re-setting after I've had a break and checked social media (which I don't want to cut out entirely, given it's the easiest way to keep up with friends). Often after a break, especially one with Twitter/Discord, I find myself vague-ing out again. So I probably need to start doing a smaller version of my re-set routine after breaks, maybe just the isochronic tones thing again.

Also, it's worth noting I've only been able to develop this routine after becoming a freelancer. This all would have been impossible for me while working my previous 9-5 job. It's one reason I really want to succeed as a freelancer - I just find office jobs so constantly distracting and discombobulating. I can never work at full capacity the way I can at home.
As far as the health journal goes, it should be pretty obvious to anyone who read it that I'm a grazer, haha. I really struggle to eat what most recipe books etc classify as "one meal". It's much easier to eat very small amounts throughout the day... I much prefer the "five small meals" approach instead of "three medium sized meals". I also struggle to eat before lunchtime... honestly if I didn't worry about the impact it'd have on my health I'd probably just drink coffee until 2pm every day.

My exercise is going well, as of Saturday I've also introduced a new Saitama-inspired routine to my existing powerlifting/tai chi/walking exercises so hopefully that'll help round out my overall exercise routine.
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Monday 22 July 2019

But wait, there's more (pages)!

So this week I tracked my health - food, exercise and any notable physical symptoms like low blood sugar dizziness etc. Well, I tracked pretty consistently up until Friday night, then I got a little shaky.

But considering until this point the longest I've managed to track my health is a day, that's pretty good. Essentially, this accountability posting method made me five times more successful than I was any other month this year!

So, even though it's a pain to include extra pics in the weekly-check-ins (less space to show off the pretty planner in the thumbnails, o no) I think it's worth continuing to do this.

Like with my planner, I'm trying to be as open as possible, and only censoring stuff if it's particularly sensitive info, like a friend's address, or my dentist's name, etc. It DOES feel weird sharing this much with other people, but again, the knowledge that potentially someone could click on the entry and read it does make me feel more motivated to stick to my plans and update properly.

On the weekend/Friday I really think my biggest stumbling block was just lack of sleep. We've had a ton of late nights recently, and whenever I stay up really late (say past 1am) even if I sleep in for the appropriate number of hours, I think I don't function as effectively during the day, afterwards.

I also tend to crave sweet foods when my sleep is disrupted or too-little, which tends to mean calorie-dense, nutrition-sparse foods, which is kind of the opposite of what I'm going for... so I really need to focus on a better sleeping pattern this week, I think. The amount of exercise I got was good (it usually is) but the junk food I had on Friday night and the icecream I had on Wednesday afternoon probably cancelled it out... if I'd slept well, I think I probably would have had less of the junky stuff on those two occasions.

There's a few things I'd like to achieve with my health log... increasing my awareness of the shape of the day and the impacts of various things (like sleep) on my behaviour and symptoms is important. In more concrete terms, I'd really like to drop a dress size this year. Size doesn't have nearly as much to do with actual biological health as many people think, and I do support body positivity at every size. Shame has never, ever made me lose weight - in fact, shame often has had the opposite effect, making me stay at home, and not look after myself. All that aside, losing a dress size this year would be nice. I have a very short neck, so even if I'm underweight by BMI I kinda have my chin connect to my neck with a diagonal line rather than a very well-defined jaw that tends to be seen as more attractive. But at least if I'm on the lower end of the scale, the shape of my face is more prominent despite the short neck. So, yeah. Honestly, my reasons are more for vanity than health, because I think my physical health is actually pretty good. Always good blood pressure, etc etc. The only things I'm low on are vitamin D and iron. I mostly just want to drop the dress size so that my jawline is more prominent, and I'll be able to wear more brands of clothing.

Well, also if there's less fat over my muscles, all of my weightlifting tone will be more prominent, which would be nice. My quads are amazing, but unless I tense my leg up, they're not so obvious. The muscle I've built on my back also isn't so obvious right now, but if I drop a dress size, I could show it off a little more. Ultimately, I'd like to get down to a 72cm (28.3 inch) waist and stay there. That's more just a single dress size away, though. For now, just a dress size will do. I have a 'true' hourglass figure, so my bust and hips are both ten inches wider than my waist at any size, and that means I'm bustier than most clothing brands allow for at my waist size. So, a smaller waist = smaller boobs too, so I can then buy clothing that fits my bust (and I can just wear a belt or take stuff in so that it sits nicely on my waist). A 97cm / 38.3 inch bust is still not going to fit into some clothing lines (particularly ones from Japan/China/Korea) but it'll at least fit into all Commonwealth/US label clothing. At the moment my bust keeps me out of a lot of stuff even though the waist will fit...

Anyway. Those are my reasons for wanting to drop a dress size. So the health diary will hopefully help with that, along with helping me track cause/effect of some digestion issues and whatnot. Ideally I should be able to lose a dress size by the end of the year.
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Sunday 14 July 2019

Now with extra Health(TM)

Well, I only got around to blogging about last week's planner yesterday, so there's not much to add today, other than I'm going to start including my health journal with my planner now, too.

I really don't want to, because it's extra stuff to do, but every time I start recording my food intake and exercise I forget about it and stop sometimes as soon as one meal later. H...hah...

So, I'm going to see if piggybacking it onto this existing habit and mild sense of accountability will help me keep the journal properly.

As far as the point of keeping a health journal goes, I have a variety of reasons, some are to do with some goals for 2019 and others are to help me monitor symptoms I get - I always used to think I had zero food intolerance or allergies but hahahahaha... nope. I just ignored a lot of the small symptoms certain foods gave me. But it seems like the older you get, the more pronounced some symptoms can become, and also, when you cut them out of your diet, your tolerance for them drops even more, so... keeping an eye on how I'm doing and what I recently ate is a good idea.

Plus, I'm really good about doing my weight lifting workouts, but I will take every excuse I can find not to do cardio. So tracking exercise will hopefully keep me aware of the balance of my workouts. I like being strong, but I definitely need a little cardio resilience in there too. My strengths will always be endurance, flexibility, and, well, strength, but yeah... I should work on my weaknesses at least a little...

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Saturday 13 July 2019

It's great when you finally find a method that works...

That thing I was worried about last entry turned out to be fine, and now I have a new piece of freelance work to do! Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~
A relief to finally have our dryer repair, even if... the repairs wound up costing the same price as the dryer...sob... (admittedly, it's the cheapest possible dryer you can own). We don't need it most of the time, but drying bedsheets in an apartment suuuuuuuuucks.

As of next week's entry, I'm going to start logging my food an exercise too and posting it here. Writing on paper is just still so much more powerful for me in terms of internalising things. While I can use digital systems to log stuff and manage tasks, if I want to be really cognisant of what's going on, for some reason, the physical act of leaving marks on paper just works way way better.

But of course even with that, if I don't have a mild sense of accountability, I won't keep it up, because pen and paper is more inconvenient. So, why not piggyback on the system I already use and post it here?

I want to track my food an exercise for all those obvious reasons - wanting to monitor my health, wanting keep stay healthy, wanting to be healthier, etc etc. Even though I think I do okay, there's huge room for improvement. Social/community stuff and health are my two weak points, as far as the elements that make up a human go. As always, there's only so much time, and while I want to lessen the impact of my weak points, I can't stop working my strong points either, in order to use those well, too.

So, increasing my awareness of what I'm eating and when I'm moving is all I want to do for now. I already exercise regularly, though my nutrition is pretty eccentric at times. Much like the planner, the initial challenge will just be to actually log things and review them... and as that gets easier and easier, then I can start on actually improving things.
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Wednesday 3 July 2019

And here we are. Six months of posting.

Here's last week's planner usage:



I've always thought of myself as a positive person, but I think it's more that I'm constantly plagued by negative thoughts, which I then positive-talk myself out of. So I'm all 'Wow, I'm such a positive person, I always try to make the most of bad things!' when... a large number of the bad things are absolutely spawned by my own head to start with. I get the impression not everyone is constantly fighting a cavalcade of 'you are going to fail, you are tolerated by others at best, your skills are puny and your mental capacity is declining daily' thoughts continuously as they go about their day.

Or am I wrong? Are we all scared, all the time, and it's just some people say their lived experience is different? I just don't know.

I say this because on Sunday I finished reading Elanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland (adored it, and Coupland's writing really can't be described without throwing in the word 'craftmanship') and the protagonist was a very relatable woman whose way of thinking made me reflect on my own quite a lot. And my self-image as a "positive" person.

Positive thinking is a skill I have learned to manage the negative thinking, which is something so innate to me I don't even see it half the time.

I say it's innate, but was I born like that? I don't think so. But the negative thinking was embedded early and young for a variety of reasons, and while I can manage it, I do think it will be a part of me forever, at this point. I'm too old now to heal those places. They're too deep, now. A splinter that melded with my bones.

And that's okay. We don't need to cure everything ailing us to still be capable of doing what we want to do with our lives. It's okay sometimes just to simply get by on some counts.

Today someone has contacted me about potential work they'd like me to do, which is great timing as I've almost completed my current big piece of work. And my immediate reaction inside my head was "That's great - oh no, they're local, they're going to meet me to discuss the project and then immediately pull out when they see how uncharismatic I am in real life compared to the way I present online. It won't matter how good my portfolio is or how suitable I am in terms of skill. I'm doomed. As soon as they see me they'll want to run. My LinkedIn profile picture is the only time I've looked attractive in the last three years."

You might scoff at this, but as a woman, I've experienced my own looks working both against and for me in a variety of situations. My fear of being judged for my looks is something I learned, not something I was born with. And when a man is offering you a job, there's two fears: you don't want him to think you're attractive, because he might treat you worse for it. And you don't want him to think you're ugly, for the exact same reason.The perfect world is one in which he thinks you are perfectly, unremarkably average, neither offensive to the eye or desirable.

If you're a man reading this, or a woman who feels men have never treated her differently for how she looks: please just trust that this is my experience. If you aren't reading this pile of journal-ish self-analysis with the assumption that I'm recording what's is true for my lived experience as, well, me, then, you're kind of wasting your time. This is not intended as some kind of PA-attack on all men, I'm just saying that this is something I've learned to be as careful about as possible, in order to avoid bad consequences with _some_ men. And when meeting a man you don't know, it's something you have to consider extra carefully if you're like me.

Still. While the risk is worth minimising through actions (dress as well as possible to present yourself as capable, though be sure to look a little frumpy, but in a put-together way.) I know my thinking is also on the extreme catastrophic end of things - even if it's worth being careful, there's no need to assume this piece of good luck will actually end in disaster. And even if this person finds my face ugly, they might still be happy to hire me. And even if, conversely, they find me attractive, they might be the kind of guy who isn't a jerk about that.

There's no point to all this writing, as usual. Just venting what's on my mind. And I definitely recommend reading Elanor Rigby. Though if you don't like a tough of the surreal mixed into your literary fiction, you might not like Coupland's work. But if you're like me, that kind of thing is a bonus!
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