An update on taking care of myself

   I'm starting to write this a few days early, and will complete it as we actually hit the two week mark, but as of right now I've been successful at both of my goals every day save one. Last Saturday I went to my partner's house for a board games social night, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the time, but when I got home at nearly 9:45 I still needed to walk the dogs and, oh boy, it was fuckin hot outside. 

  After finishing our walk it was about 10:40 and I was pouring sweat. In that moment I made an executive decision to push my "in bed" time back up to an hour so I could cool off, relax, and get recentered after being around a lot of folks for a few hours. It turns out this is supported by sleep research, which suggests "earlier sleep timing and regularity in sleep patterns with consistent bedtimes and wake-up times are favourably associated with health." So I pushed my bedtime back to midnight last Saturday. Short of that I've hit 8000+ steps and bed by 11:00 every day!

  You see, I'm an extrovert at heart: I recharge by spending time around people, but on the same side of that time around people gets me wired and I need to relax a while before I rest. Spending 16 years mostly isolated in rural Oklahoma has settled me into a low-energy high-energy exchange mode where I basically function day to day in a restful way and have bursts when I spend time around people. It's been an excellent survival mechanism but it can be taxing on my nervous system if I shift between the two too rapidly, so a nice lull state comedown is necessary. 

  It's now been a few days since I began writing this and I've come back to it to happily report success for the last two weeks. My dogs seem healthier from the walks we're taking, I feel better generally, and most importantly I feel like I sleep better. My sleep score on my health app is consistently higher with less variation than before. Previously I'd scored as high as 91 and as low as 43, but now I'm pretty solidly 85-89. I wake up feeling rested and have adjusted my bedtime to be "in bed between 10:30 and 11:30," allowing me to skew a bit later on the weekend and make sure I get plenty of sleep during the week. 

  I'll definitely be continuing this trend as I slowly work in more habits for an overall healthier lifestyle. I'm getting older and I've spent decades punishing myself for the things I did when I was younger, I really do need to admit to myself that it's time to show myself some grace. This is another place where my "embrace the suck" mentality does more harm than good and I owe it to myself and the people I love to show me a little kindness.