January and I'm on my way

Hooray Sleep!

I realize how busy my past semester became that I didn't even post between October and now. Since then I've turned 30 (I'm surprisingly happy about that?), went through a lot of stress, and hit my breaking point.

An irregular sleep cycle and sleep deprivation was causing more damage than I even realized. I knew it was generally "bad" for me, but I hadn't pinpointed just what poor sleep does to the mind and body. It exacerbates anxiety, erodes attention and focus, contributes to feelings of distraction and intrusive thoughts, and more than anything, messes up the metabolism to the point of hopelessness. Somewhere around final exams, I decided enough was enough. I wasn't going to pull all-nighters anymore, and I resolved to make a regular, healthy sleep schedule one of my most serious priorities.

The first few days of my semester break, I slept like it was my job. Gradually, while visiting my family, I started waking up early and going to bed fairly early in the evening. I was trying my hardest to get on a solid sleep-wake cycle to put my best foot forward (for once in my life). I'm encouraged that since this semester started, I've gone to bed at a reasonable hour and woken up feeling unusually refreshed and energized most days. Several days, I woke up before my alarm, feeling terrific. It is my sincerest hope that I'm able to manage my time and my coursework so that I can maintain this schedule, augmented with even more exercise.

Speaking of Exercise

I also took a serious look at my course load and daily schedule, plotting out times during the week that I would go to the gym at school. The semester started January 18th, and it's probably not surprising that I've skipped more of those intended times than I've made. I tried to make up for the missed workouts by doing double sessions at the next one, but I could see quickly that I needed to find another time and place to exercise.

This afternoon after skipping the scheduled long session to go grocery shopping and clean my kitchen (because I have been living on takeout since the semester started too), I decided to pay the fee to use the gym room in my apartment complex. I had kind of forgotten that I had a gym on the premises because when I moved here, I didn't believe I'd ever find myself happy on an elliptical machine or treadmill, and I'm delighted to see how wrong I was about that. The gym room is open from 6am to 11pm, so it is conceivable to exercise before class (most mornings I have to get in the shower by 8 am and leave by 9), as well as in the evenings. This alleviates the time crunch I was experiencing in the middle of the day, when I might have had barely enough time to exercise, but not enough time to shower and dress again afterwards. Or, more commonly, I found I needed the breaks between classes to finish up homework or make progress on projects, and it does seem more sensible to focus on doing well in my classes.

I will probably still try to use the gym at school, especially for some of the weight machines that my small apartment gym is lacking. I just have to be certain that if I decide to come home and workout here, I'll actually do it, instead of getting settled into my warm, comfortable apartment and blowing the gym off entirely.

Another major advantage of the gym here is that I'm now much more inclined to exercise on the weekends. My general pattern of activity is strong Monday through Thursday, and then I become completely sedentary for the three days that I work on assignments and take care of errands. While I love my commute, I'm probably never going to make it just to use the gym at school, nor would I invent occasion to be on campus on the weekend. But if I only have to put clothes on and walk across the courtyard... well, that seems much more feasible.

In addition to actual at-the-gym exercise (which I hope will become much more vigorous and lengthy soon), I've continued walking, averaging 4-5 miles 4 days or more a week. The clip on my pedometer recently broke, which is giving me a headache, but in reviewing my January data, I see that I've walked (and sometimes hiked) a total of 52.99 miles, for an estimated 5087 calories burned.

January Pedometer Readings

Week 1 (Jan 1-7)
17,674 steps, 1805 of which were at a moderate pace (16 min), estimated 533 kcal and 5.96 miles

Week 2 (Jan 8-14)
26,013 steps, 12,102 of which were at a moderate pace (99 min), estimated 986 kcal, 10.23 miles

Week 3 (Jan 15-21)
52,395 steps, 31,219 of which were at a moderate pace (258 min), estimated 2158 kcal, 22.15 miles

Week 4 (Jan 22-28)
38,796 steps, 13,868 of which were at a moderate pace (119 min), estimated 1410 kcal, 14.65 miles

I'm going back and forth on whether to rig together some repair to this pedometer, to buy a replacement of the same kind, or to upgrade to something more exacting, like one of those combination pedometer/heart rate monitors. Most likely, the lower tech and lower cost, the better for me, since I'm not exactly doing extreme exercise yet. Emphasis on yet.

Another big change is simply one of attitude. I made myself the promise, in the middle of yet another end-of-semester nervous breakdown, "I will not stress out about school anymore." I mean, I know that I have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time, and that it's difficult work. I knew that when I chose to do this degree, and nothing has changed. So why stress out all the time? It is entirely within my capacity to stay on top of my work and make it that I don't need to sacrifice sleep, exercise, or my mental health for the sake of academia ever again.

God I hope I'm right about that.