No, it’s not an April’s Fools joke. There really is a blog post today.
HI!
I know, it’s been a little while. While I was away, I’ve been taking some time off from much of my life (work, the blog, social media) to focus on a few things, primarily myself.
For a little over a year now, I’ve been feeling off. Initially, I thought it was due to the fact that I went from working/staying on the East Coast to primarily Transcon flying and that my body clock was just off. But I wasn’t just feeling jetlagged and recovering a day or so later. I felt tired all of the time. My sleep quality was horrible and I would wake up in the morning feeling restless. I stopped going to the gym, from a lack of energy and motivation.
Mentally, I was struggling as well. My brain felt foggy all of the time which made getting things done feel impossible. It would sometimes take me weeks to cross off a simple item on my to-do list because it felt daunting. To add insult to injury, I was suffering with persistent migraines. Day after day I would sit in pain with no relief. Finally in February, I had had enough. I was tired of being this numb, shell of myself. Something needed to change
I wasn’t sure what was going on, but my intuition was telling me to start with getting better sleep at night. Soon, I realized that my sleep was wayyy off due to the fact that I was always adjusting to whatever time zone I was in, and this was majorly confusing my body. My goal was to stick to one time zone and stick to going to sleep earlier, and within two weeks, I was sleeping soundly through the night and waking up rested.
As my sleep improved, my brain fog began to clear, and I began to focus on other areas I could improve. I started drinking more water so I wasn’t always dehydrated. I stopped eating late at night so I wasn’t hungry at Midnight when I should be going to sleep. Lastly, and this was a big one, I drastically reduced the amount of sugar in my diet. Because I was consuming a lot of it. It’s kind of ironic that I crave sugar when I am feeling down, but that the more of it I consume, the worse I feel, especially mentally. Once I cut out drinking soda when I was working, or putting sugar in my coffee/tea, I noticed a major shift. My sleep was better, and so was my focus and energy. Best of all, I was starting to feel more and more like myself again.
It’s been almost two months since I began my “recovery,” and I feel like I am 70% back to normal. There are days when I struggle a bit, but overall, I feel better and better everyday. It was nice to take time off from work especially to just slow things down and refocus on myself. As we go into a new season, just like Spring, I feel refreshed and renewed.
Another thing that came out of my little break? A sense of purpose. Checking-in with myself, I realized that I needed to stop doubting myself and and to just chase after my dreams. Like going for that new business idea. Or finding ways to be of service to others outside of work. Or starting that YouTube channel. And for this space we know and love, to get back to my roots as a writer and focus on more long-form, essay type posts when it comes to my blog. To share more stories and experiences, with no filter.
“If you feel like there’s something out there that you’re supposed to be doing, if you have a passion for it, then stop wishing and just do it.”
-Wanda Skyes
I promise that this won’t be my last blog post for the month. So until next time, have a great day and “see” you soon.
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