Deathbyshiny continues work on the strategy guide!

[deathbyshiny]

I totally (don't) love that I started this summer break with such good intentions, and then fell a little flat. Family personal and medical problems (never my own, of course) kind of kicked me in the back of the knees and knocked me over.

 

I did have my physical last week, and everything looks good (despite my weight), so I am going to be working on getting that down however I can make it work. So that means more generic goals to get myself in a good place.

 

1. Try to reduce my fatigue. 

I am sleeping way too late during the day (I'm not really going to bed any later to justify it. I assume my body is trying to catch up from the school year). Setting an alarm doesn't help because then I am exhausted during the day and end up taking a nap. I need to either force myself to go to bed earlier, or I need to work myself down via alarms to get up at a decent time, or get up and stay awake.

 

2. Try to reduce my anxiety.

The above-mentioned family problems means my anxiety has once again kicked it into high gear. I need to go back to the methods that worked for me.

 

3. Eat better/Exercise more.

This is self-explanatory. 

 

So even though I'm a few days late, this is where I am. Slow, small steps before I make big, numeric-based goals again. If I overwhelm myself, I'll give up. I refuse to give up.

 

[Diadhuit]

I am glad to hear you are trying again even when life goes a in your way. It must be tough!

How many hours do you sleep? It might be what your body needs, we tend to underestimate our need. Or it could be the fact that you have nothing to do (especially if you wake up and go back to sleep)

Take care of yourself

[jcmgm]

 

Hi! Getting a good sleep is great first step!

On 13/7/2017 at 0:44 AM, deathbyshiny said:

1. Try to reduce my fatigue. 

I am sleeping way too late during the day (I'm not really going to bed any later to justify it. I assume my body is trying to catch up from the school year). Setting an alarm doesn't help because then I am exhausted during the day and end up taking a nap. I need to either force myself to go to bed earlier, or I need to work myself down via alarms to get up at a decent time, or get up and stay awake.

 

I love naps.. I use them whenever life get's in the way of my sleep schedule..
When I was finishing my thesis, I was all over the place.. working late, waking up late..
Now that I'm on my doctorate, I needed to get back on being an early bird.. What I found helpful, was to start waking up every day at the same time.. First I needed naps, all the time.. but then, I found that I was going to sleep at a similar hour all days..

 

On 13/7/2017 at 7:01 AM, Diadhuit said:

I am glad to hear you are trying again even when life goes a in your way. It must be tough!

How many hours do you sleep? It might be what your body needs, we tend to underestimate our need. Or it could be the fact that you have nothing to do (especially if you wake up and go back to sleep)

Take care of yourself

As Diadhuit said, perhaps it's that you don't get what you need.. or that you're trying to wake yourself up in the middle of the wrong phase of sleep! Have you ever noticed that sometimes you end up waking naturally like 2 hours earlier, but with so much more energy than if waited for the alarm? From what I know and found out, it's due to the phases..
There are even some apps that wake you up based on this, even suggest you sleeping times ! I think it's sleepfyme or something like that

 

 

Best of lucks! 

[zeroh13]

On 7/12/2017 at 11:44 PM, deathbyshiny said:

So even though I'm a few days late, this is where I am. Slow, small steps before I make big, numeric-based goals again. If I overwhelm myself, I'll give up. I refuse to give up.

I have definitely been there before.

 

I was going to ask how many hours you sleep, but diadhuit bet me to it!

 

On 7/12/2017 at 11:44 PM, deathbyshiny said:

The above-mentioned family problems means my anxiety has once again kicked it into high gear. I need to go back to the methods that worked for me.

It's possible that your anxiety is interfering with your quality of sleep. I know when mine really ramps up it takes me hours to fall asleep, and I wake up feeling like I didn't sleep at all. >_<

 

How's your challenge going so far?

[deathbyshiny]

On 7/13/2017 at 6:01 AM, Diadhuit said:

I am glad to hear you are trying again even when life goes a in your way. It must be tough!

How many hours do you sleep? It might be what your body needs, we tend to underestimate our need. Or it could be the fact that you have nothing to do (especially if you wake up and go back to sleep)

Take care of yourself

 

Part of my problem is that I have too much to do, so when I finally get time to sleep, I sleep. I'm working on it though! I get pretty consistent hours, during the school year and during the summer, I just get more of them in the summer, so I end up waking up at 9 or 10 instead of 7 or 8 when I probably should get up. The main problem is that no matter what I do, I can't fall asleep before midnight. I could take medicine, drink sleepy tea, try to knock myself out, but I still can't do it. I function way better at night than in the morning. So I'm working on ways to adjust it.

 

On 7/14/2017 at 7:36 PM, jcmgm said:

 

Hi! Getting a good sleep is great first step!

I love naps.. I use them whenever life get's in the way of my sleep schedule..
When I was finishing my thesis, I was all over the place.. working late, waking up late..
Now that I'm on my doctorate, I needed to get back on being an early bird.. What I found helpful, was to start waking up every day at the same time.. First I needed naps, all the time.. but then, I found that I was going to sleep at a similar hour all days..

As Diadhuit said, perhaps it's that you don't get what you need.. or that you're trying to wake yourself up in the middle of the wrong phase of sleep! Have you ever noticed that sometimes you end up waking naturally like 2 hours earlier, but with so much more energy than if waited for the alarm? From what I know and found out, it's due to the phases..
There are even some apps that wake you up based on this, even suggest you sleeping times ! I think it's sleepfyme or something like that

 

Best of lucks! 

 

I definitely get the sleep I need. I don't set alarms in the summer, so I wake up naturally. It's during the school year that I have no choice. I have to be up by 5:40 each morning, or I don't get everything done in the morning before I have to leave for work. When I nap during the school year, it's more because I'm exhausted after dealing with 120+ students a day. If I set an alarm during the summer, I wake myself up when I shouldn't, and then I usually need a nap because I didn't wake up naturally. (It also doesn't matter how I wake up in the morning, I am definitely a night owl and not a morning person, so I never have more energy in the morning haha!)

 

On 7/15/2017 at 9:03 PM, zeroh13 said:

I have definitely been there before.

 

I was going to ask how many hours you sleep, but diadhuit bet me to it!

 

It's possible that your anxiety is interfering with your quality of sleep. I know when mine really ramps up it takes me hours to fall asleep, and I wake up feeling like I didn't sleep at all. >_<

 

How's your challenge going so far?

 

Things are going pretty well, all things considering. My anxiety probably does mess with my sleep, but more in the falling asleep stages than the staying asleep stages. I also try to ramp it down before bed, so I've been doing much better than that. 

 

I also think my fatigue stems mostly from my daily stresses and not my sleeping, honestly. I might have incorrectly attributed it to sleep. I'm not -tired-. I'm mentally or emotionally exhausted, or both. I'm working on that, too. I need to get better at telling people no when I don't feel up to doing something. 

[Dagger]

On 7/13/2017 at 5:44 AM, deathbyshiny said:

2. Try to reduce my anxiety.

The above-mentioned family problems means my anxiety has once again kicked it into high gear. I need to go back to the methods that worked for me.

 

3. Eat better/Exercise more.

This is self-explanatory. 

I'm assuming you have some specific actions in mind, otherwise these goals are vague enough that you might not feel like you got anywhere even if you did change things. We all work differently when it comes to goals, so I won't try to give advice. Sometimes very vague goals is exactly what I need. Sometimes I need very specific ones. Just checking.

[deathbyshiny]

On 7/19/2017 at 6:10 AM, Dagger said:

I'm assuming you have some specific actions in mind, otherwise these goals are vague enough that you might not feel like you got anywhere even if you did change things. We all work differently when it comes to goals, so I won't try to give advice. Sometimes very vague goals is exactly what I need. Sometimes I need very specific ones. Just checking.

I've found that specific goals actually trigger my anxiety more, so I tend not to do them. If I make vague/generic goals, I look at the end piece, rather than the process, and I make more progress. I figure I'm broken like that.

[Dagger]

18 hours ago, deathbyshiny said:

I've found that specific goals actually trigger my anxiety more, so I tend not to do them. If I make vague/generic goals, I look at the end piece, rather than the process, and I make more progress. I figure I'm broken like that.

Great. I'm glad you've found a way to make goals work for you. If vague works, then vague isn't broken.

[zeroh13]

On 7/20/2017 at 5:57 PM, deathbyshiny said:

I've found that specific goals actually trigger my anxiety more, so I tend not to do them. If I make vague/generic goals, I look at the end piece, rather than the process, and I make more progress. I figure I'm broken like that.

Vague goals are definitely less anxiety provoking. I do that too. And sometimes when I'm in a rut (or locked in battle with the depression monster), I'll make a super easy goal so that I can point to it and say "I did something!"

[Wobbegong]

Hey deathbyshiny, how's it going with your goals? Managing anxiety and fatigue at the same time is tough work, but you can absolutely make progress if you work at it! 

 

Let us know if there's anything we can do to help, and don't forget to keep us posted!

[deathbyshiny]

<3 Things are going well!  I am exercising more now that it's not something specific I feel like I have to do. I'm just really bad at coming to post on the forum! Haha

 

I am sleeping better, too, so that's a good thing!

[deathbyshiny]

I suppose I did fail a bit on my checking the site more. My web stuff in general has fallen by the wayside this summer. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, I am exercising more, and my next big hurdle is going to be cutting down on eating late. 

 

Overall, I am fairly pleased with how I am looking at things, so here's to another month!

[Wobbegong]

Hooray! Glad to hear you're pleased overall. Sometimes our priorities change and the stuff we focus on naturally changes too as a result. There's plenty of time to get back to it later, or maybe to decide it's not what you wanted to be doing and focus your attention on something else. You'll get there!

[Dagger]

Sounds like a successful challenge!

 

Summer often makes me less wanting to be on the computer, although I far too easily overcome the reluctance! lol

[Wobbegong]

3 hours ago, Dagger said:

Summer often makes me less wanting to be on the computer, although I far too easily overcome the reluctance! lol

Yesterday after work I had some writing to do for an upcoming Rebel Mini but I was tired of being in my room/cave. I took my laptop to the backyard with me and did the writeup in the sun! It was a nice compromise. 

[Dagger]

3 hours ago, Wobbegong said:

Yesterday after work I had some writing to do for an upcoming Rebel Mini but I was tired of being in my room/cave. I took my laptop to the backyard with me and did the writeup in the sun! It was a nice compromise. 

I do that from time to time too.

[deathbyshiny]

Thanks! I just get into this pattern where, whoops, I haven't checked any of my social media in days. I suppose that's not a horrible thing because I don't like checking it super frequently, but I can make an exception for this site! (Or try to!)