Friday, February 5, 2016

End of the Week Thoughts on My Mental Health Week

This week didn't end up going quite as planned. It was harder than I anticipated to stick to such a strict routine. It seems this week I felt busier than others although I suspect I really wasn't. Although, coming out of this I feel much more calm and at peace than I have in weeks. I don't so much think that it was the strict routine but rather my mindset going into my days. I had 3 different tests this week and although I wasn't any more or less prepared than usual, when it came to taking the test I was much more calm and felt I had less of a mental struggle while taking them.

Tuesday night was a struggle. My brothers decided that of all nights, that was the night they would introduce a sing-a-long "homework" session into their evenings so I spent most of the tech free hour being annoyed at them interupring my reading. I got very into "Memoirs of a Geisha" that evening and discovered (via my brother) that I had read until 9:30 without even noticing much time had passed at all. Which was great, until I tried to go to sleep and tossed and turned for about an hour. At this time, I'm sad to admit that I cheated and got on my phone. I didn't feel that I needed to though but it was the most convenient option because I was too tired to read. The next morning I didn't feel as alert as usual but mentally I felt better still.

Wednesday night I didn't get home until 8:30 and had two tests the next day and still had to eat dinner so I knew right away that sticking to the plan wasn't an option.With my desk now clean I was able to get in a solid study session for both tests. I think that if I hadn't focused on cleaning up my room and study space earlier this week I would have blown off studying as much and as well as I did.  Even with this, I did go to sleep before 10:30 though but did not enforce my technology curfew nor did I spend any time of destressing activities. I slept well until about 4:30A.M. when I woke up, wide awake. I spent this time until around 5 on my phone but put it away as soon as I started to feel tired.

Thursday night was a very relaxed evening for me. I didn't get home until around dinner time and had to run a few errands and finish dinner for my family. Again, I neglected my destressing time but as I had nothing going on with school today I didn't feel it was necessary.

One thing that I've always made a priority this week was journaling in my gratitude journal. If I didn't do anything else I made sure to do that before going to sleep. I think that that has greatly improved my mood and overall stress levels. I am finding it easier to pick out the positives than I did on Monday.

A missed goal this week for me was definitely the dependency on checking my phone before bed and in the morning. I think the technology curfew is a good idea but I'm not sure that a 9P.M. bedtime is realistic for my schedule. There definitely are nights when that is something that I can accomplish but most of the time I am too busy for that or not tired enough. I think I will make adjustments to my "schedule" as a more livable routine.

Another miss was to exercise more. I will admit that not once this week did I spend 20 minutes exercising which is honestly embarassing because that isn't and shouldn't be a challenge. I do think though that for me to want to exercise I need to be in the right mental state and I'm not quite there yet where I would be working out for myself and not to please others (the whole fam connected on FitBit does not help with this 0/10 recommend). I am usually so comfortable in my skin as I am and I feel at this point that working out would be about me not feeling as comfortable. The FitBit, and seeing how much walking all my extended family members are doing and them sending me messages even as simple as the little cheer is really causing me to become selfconscious when I haven't been in a very long time. Once I can read a point where I wouldn't be working out to make them happy I can add that into my routine.    

Thanks for following along with my week. If you do something similar, let me know how it is for you and how you feel afterwards.
XOXO
Gretchen

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