 Update - saturday, october 27th
Hi,
After having some fairly average days, not too productive, but not doing nothing either, I came to the conclusion it was because of my lack of sleep. You see, I figured, since my sleep pattern was getting better, that I needed less. So I got by with 7h/night. I guess I see now that doesn't work. Maybe someday it will, but not now. What happens (I think) is that I start getting just lightly tired so I become kinda sluggish, but not as much tired as I used to be when I used to study during nightime, so I don't recognize it soon enough. My old pattern was "work 'till exhaustion and sleep when you can". Now, since I don't do that anymore, I'm learning to recognize my body's messages on fatigue. Not something easy to learn, but I'm glad I'm doing it.
On the upside, staying on the subject of sleep, I seem to have gotten mostly rid of my insomnia problems that have plagued me for years. Honestly, it feels really, really great to know that when I go to bed, I won't be long until I start sleeping. I figured 3 things have helped for that:
1) regular sleeping hours (duh!)
2) no caffeine (or next to none)
3) an old memory trick I've adapted to get me to sleep
What's that trick? I read in a book a decade ago an exercice to practice your memory and your attention span, and I've adapted it. You simply count backward from a 100, using -3 and +2. So basically, you get: 100, 97, 99, 96, 98, 95, 97, and so on. At each breath, you picture the number in your mind (don't think it aloud with the little voice in your head, because I find the whole point of the exercice is to shut up that voice so you can go to sleep!). Personnaly, I can't seem to be able to get past 80...
Since I got to bed early last night and gave myself permission to sleep in late (i.e. 7h30am! wow that's nothing with what sleeping in late used to mean for me!), I now feel refreshed and ready to go. I've planned my work for today last night, so I'm getting on it right now.
Good day!
Lifequest
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