I have been doing parts of my new healthier lifestyle (such as proper meals and better hydration) for about a week and a half now, but yesterday was the first day of lent, and I'm happy to say that Day 1 is complete. I had my 3 meals of the day and nothing else. And none of my meals contained chocolate, sweets, cake, biscuits or ice cream. Happy Days.
1 down only another 43 to go! (39 days of lent + 6 Sundays as I'm including those -2 for my Birthday and my Birthday Dinner party, which are on different days). Believe it or not, I've not even felt hungry in between. I'm really trying to make sure that I don't feel like I need to eat so much, and so much of the time. It's fabulous!
I've also been doing a bit of research (nothing too strenuous!) into sleep and sleeping patterns. I've been looking into how light affects sleeping as for over 90% of the time that humans have inhabited the planet, we haven't had electric light. Naturally this has caused evolution to work with the light patterns of the natural light and the seasons etc, to allow us to be adapted to the most suitable conditions.
The gist of it is, darkness makes us tired (and scared, but that's a whole other story) and light makes us wake up. We are diurnal, meaning we function during the day. So the main points I have taken from it is going to bed earlier (you sleep better earlier in the night, pre-midnight basically) so I'm now turning my lights out at 10:30pm or sometimes earlier and then waking up earlier. By waking up earlier, you allow your body to wake up with the increase in natural light. Therefore I've been waking up between 6 and 6:30am each day.
One of the first things I've then done is open one curtain, to let natural light in and so that my body can use the natural effects of a gradual increase in light to become more awake. I didn't know if it would work, but it was from a credible source and also, my current knowledge of biology, adaptive behaviour and ecology meant that it all did make sense and the theory behind it was very easy to understand and agree with.
It is working! As it gets lighter each morning and more and more light comes into my room, I am feeling more alert. Coupled with getting up and getting the blood flowing round the body at a faster rate, I am feeling better for getting up earlier and actually getting up within a maximum of 20 minutes after my alarm has gone off. Lazing around in bed for ages after the alarm is lovely as a one off, but really wasn't making me feel up and ready to face the day.
I'm really glad that I'm implementing these changes and sticking to them, it makes a nice change and I really am feeling a lot better for it. I'm also (and this isn't just because of the changes, but they have helped) feeling a lot happier recently. I've felt a definite change over the past couple of weeks or so, that has made me realise that overall, my mood is a lot lighter.
I feel happy, and genuinely happy, a lot more of the time and I don't worry about the little, irrelevant things in life so much. I think a tablet increase has been the main reason for this, but I don't mind that this is the reason. If the tablets are going to help me to be better, then I'm not going to reject them.
Percy, my black dog (depression analogy, for those who haven't read previous posts) seems to have been behaving more recently. He's more obedient and knows that I'm the boss. He's still there though, as a companion and he won't ever leave me fully, but as long as he doesn't control me, I like his company.
Overall, with spring arriving, I do feel like a bit of a 'new person' a Beth 2.0 (beta) if you will. 'New and improved' and feeling a lot happier about the world around me.
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