Tag Archives: health

Health, Musings, Writing

To Follow your own advice

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I know, it sucks. Like a lot. Coaches don’t play, you may want to yell at me, and that’s a very fair point. Yet, recognizing when you give advice you should follow yourself, it could actually help you do it. Let me explain.

Yesterday, a friend was sharing some of their struggles with their workload with their studies, and having to pretty much just put their head down and keep studying as much as possible to get through it. Which reminded me of when I had my worst crunch periods, but I was also very sick, so I had to balance everything I was doing on a knife’s edge to not completely crash. So I gave him advice based on how I took care of myself during such periods.

When I needed to crunch studies, the most important thing to me was to eat regularly and take a walk every day. At least one walk. This would depend on the level of my health, and at one point I had to just opt for much shorter walks, but more frequently both for mental and physical health reasons. I’ve gotten through the worst times, health wise, of my life while studying full time, and it’s been strange, but you pick up some interesting coping mechanisms, and one was take good care of yourself while studying.

So there I was, yesterday, unable to really go out the house and unable to take very well care of myself, and handle my physical and mental anxiety enough to get writing done as I wanted, and get resting done as I wanted. And it hit me, I wasn’t following my own advice. I knew in theory that I would be better off, if I wanted to write, if I took a walk every day. When I took a walk every day for like 14 days, I wrote two good articles in that time.

I have the proof that putting in this effort makes a difference. I got the experience, to give me the knowledge what I can do to create a better better environment for myself. And since my goal for the coming 2 years is to write, if not daily at least a majority of the week’s days, establishing a pattern and habit of treating my self as well as I’d treat my friends would be a stable foundation to start on.

So here I am, again, sharing my advice, but advice that I want to follow myself. I want to write more, and in order to be able to write, I need to take a walk at least every other day. And to not feel icky, I need to shower, and I need to remember to feed myself because my brain is doing a lot of work. I need to remember to take breaks and go up and just do something else. I need to allow myself restful sleep, even on days I haven’t written anything.

I can work on figuring out what habits work better for me. But still keep treating myself with compassion, and care. Even on high anxiety days, I can help myself through because I know that 30min walk is very likely to make me feel better, and even if it doesn’t, that would’ve been 30minutes where I didn’t have to sit and just tense up, it was 30minutes I moved my body, and 30minutes I got to breathe fresh air, and 30minutes I got to listen to a book as I took my walk. It was 30minutes that I was able to meet cute dogs, or just see the colours of the leaves change in the park. It was 30minutes that I took a little bit better care of myself instead of just wallowing in my anxiety.

And even if it doesn’t work, I can always take a nap after my walk, and try again tomorrow.

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health update, Journey, Musings

It took 7 days

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Before we get started here is some background information. I have finally been starting to get diagnosed, with the help of a private rheumatologist. This has yielded not only answers, that I have hEDS, fibromyalgia, and hypothyroidism, but also some relief thanks to medication (for the thyroid in particular). It’s that relief that I want to talk about today.

Today was that day. It wasn’t the 3rd day, where I finally had something tangible to compare how I was feeling to. Nor the 4th day where I again marveled at the idea that I could go through a day and do things without being too tired. Definitely not the 5th day, where this newfound energy allowed me to even consider the possibility to have an active social life again. And absolutely not the 6th day, where I was starting to get really excited about meeting new people.

No, it took 7 days, 4 if you account for the fact that it took 3 days for anything to happen in the first place.

It took 7 days for my body to play catch-up, with my new-found energy, which I will have you know, that I have not been pushing boundaries with.

It took 7 days, for my body to tell me FUCK YOU. Because I did small things like two machines of laundry, went out and sat in the sun for an hour with a new friend.

It took 7 days, for my body to completely reject the idea that having an energetic life again would be possible.

It took 7 days, for me to be reminded how precious this energy that’s returned to me is, and how well I need to take care of my body to continue living a life.

It took 7 days, for me to write a real blog post about a health update, as it required me to get hit back down on my ass.

It took 7 days, and even with the pain in every joint in my hand and fingers, I needed to share this experience with you.

It took 7 days, 4 days if you account for the first 3 days where I didn’t notice anything yet, for me to realize that having more energy isn’t necessarily a blessing.

It took 7 days, to be reminded that I have not been blessed with a miracle.

It took 7 days, for me to know that I am about to meet an entirely new life, and that I’ve merely just begun this journey.

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Alternatively, check out my support page for more info.