Day 82 - Ill, but ok

Hi there,

Woke up at 6'0 clock. Feeling ill and sweaty. Couldn't sleep, so I decided to do answer some email that had been piling up the last week. I finished at 9 and watched a few episodes of Californication, before I got out of bed.

Went to the rolfing massage guy again and got stuck in traffic.

In the evening I bleached my hair to a whiter shade (of pale?) haha.

It worked out ok, not very good, but ok. It's always hard to get a uniform shade.

I feel less ill now, hope I sleep better tonight and get the room finished tomorrow.

Bye,

Alex

Day 81 - No planning yet

Hi All,

Got up around 14.00 today. Got to bed around 5.00 the day before. I went to a friend to go to a shop specialised in hair products. We needed something to bleach the roots of my hair. He will come by tomorrow to do so. I did not make a planning for the rest of the week today, but I will share what I have in mind so far:

Tomorrow: 

alarm clock at 10.30, 15-30 minutes of light therapy.

Finished showering/breakfast around 13.00

travelling to Rolfing practitioner for massage around 14.00.

Returning home around 16.00

Cleaning up room until dinner

21.00: meeting with hairdresser for root touch up

Wednesday:

Alarm clock at 9.30, light therapy.

Cleaning up room untill finished

Afterwards I'm free to do what I want

sleep around 01.00

Thursday:

Alarm clock at 9.30, light therapy.

Meeting with a friend entire day

Working in a bar in the evening/night.

I've realised this week isn't going to be my week full of exercise and without any alcohol. I will do so next week. I'm not ready for it yet. Let's see this week as a starter. 

Regards,

Alexander

Day 80 - New start

Hi There,
I'm back

I didn't feel like posting for a while but I want you to know that I will restart posting from now on. I've noticed it makes me feel more on track when I share what I'm up to with you guys.

The current situation: I've partyed a lot, returned home very late (around 8.00) sometimes and I drank a lot of beer. I've met interesting people but I also had to deal with some rejections in the field of love. Overall it was good, but I need to recover and regain some structure: The room is a mess, mails are piling up, energy is low and I get irritated easily.

The good news:
I still feel positive and I made some career plans. I decided I want to work for TV for a particular network. I've shared this idea with a lot of people in bars, and returned home with some interesting connections with people in the field. Today I got an idea for a new program. I will make a pilot of it and I will sent this with my cover letter.

In addition to this, in my "week of partying" I've bought a bunch of new clothes. I've added some more pieces to my collection in the weeks after, and I'm proud to say that I'm building a complete new wardrobe. I've also dyed my hair blonde. These things together with my new state of mind (positive and youthful) help to form my new identity: I feel like a changed man.

The plan:
A week of structure and discipline.
This includes: sleeping at normal times, cleaning up the room, drinking less, eating healthy and making plans for my new career/life.

I'll make the plan tomorrow.

See ya,
Alexander

Day 43 - Partying

Vacation was ok but not great. It rained a lot and the driving was too much for such a short holiday: a one week stay at a cabin took 4400 km's of driving.

When I returned home I noticed a big party week was going on in the town I live in. It was organised by the student societies to welcome new students and to gain new members. This is done every year. I decided to participate completely in the partying. It gave me a lot of energy to meet all kinds of new people. I laughed a lot and had interesting conversations.  I slept 4 hours a day all week and slept even less yesterday, when I returned home at 7.40. 

I had to get up at 11 today to get to my Rolfing appointment (see Day 12 - Painful massage).

The massage was painful and emotional. There were spots that lead to vigorous crying. I had no idea why. They triggered no particular memory but just led to a wave of tears rising in me.

This crying subsided after a minute and returned a few times during the session.

Clearing of emotional blockages? Sensory overload? Whatever you believe. I don't care. I just know what happened, and cannot explain why it occurred, but afterwards I felt good and strong, and that is the only thing that is important.

But, as you all can imagine: I am completely exhausted at the moment due to the booze and the lack of proper sleep. 

Therefore I will go to bed early tonight, probably around 22.00.

Such a shame life doesn't consist of partying each night. That would be so great.

But there's nothing I can do about it, the party week is over and you cannot party all day forever. There are things that need to be done.

But I really miss it, allready.... 

Day 28 - Overheated

I had a bad sleep of about 5 hours and I drove 1040 kilometers today. We left at 11.15 and arrived at 22.00 hours. I had only three 5 minute breaks and a 30 minute dinner break. It wasn't easy on the car. The outside temperatures of 32 degrees centigrade combined with the speed at which we drove left the car overheated multiple times. When we stopped for a rest, we couldn't start the car until it had cooled down. The starter engine jammed completely. Fortunately the outside temperatures will be lower then today the following days, so I expect less problems. Nevertheless, this issue needs to be fixed. I believe it's probably a clogged radiator or some mailfunction in the pump. Tomorrow I have to drive 657 km's. Sounds like an easy job, but the TomTom says it will take 8.24 hours. This slow speed of travelling is because of the type of the roads. I hope I will leave this hotel before 11.30, and will arrive at the hostel before 22.00. 

Day 27 - Ready for holiday?

Stressy day, buying the last groceries, packing the bags and looking forward to a 12 hour drive tomorrow. I wasn't looking forward to this holiday very much, but now I can't wait to be there. I want to see what a week in a relaxed enviroment can bring me.

Hope to write tomorrow from my hotel.

Day 26 - Holiday number two is approaching

Hi All,

I had my birthday somewhere in the last days. It was a bit lonely and accompanied with some conflicts with my parents, which gave me a very negative mood. Today I met with a friend, which made my mood swing back to the positive. I am however still tired and have to pack all my stuff tomorrow for a 10 day during holiday. Thursday I'll be the driver that will travel about 1000 km's. It's a good idea if I just go to bed now so I'll be as rested as possible. I'll probably write some better content tomorrow, so see you then,

Bye,

Alex

Day 22 - Painfree

Slept 12 hours, although I woke up naturally at 9 o clock. I decided just to kill the alarm and woke up again at 13.00. I was energetic the first hours after awakening but the tiredness kicked back in afterwards. I experienced no muscle pain or other body aches today and my mood was more positive than the past days. 

I dind't do anything usefull, but I believe I will be able to do so tomorrow.

Day 21 - Irritations

The day started by me snoozing the alarm clock, getting up near 11.00, hitting the light therapy and checking email, without the 3 morning cigarettes I formerly consumed during the 30 minutes of light therapy. It wasn't a very big difference.

The psychologist was weird as usual. He first asked me how I felt. "Bad!", I replied. Immediately he started laughing, rubbing he's head ans sighing complaining "I made him work so hard". The guy is very slow and needs a lot of time to think what he's going to say. For me that is totally different. Nevertheless, he has important things to tell most of the time, so I just try to be patient with him. 

This time he explained that the pain in my body and the tiredness I'm coping with are probably the result of the massage or the fact that the study is finally completely finished. The massage must have loosened some old negative emotions and tensions in my body, which would be able to heal, now I can feel them. I must stress the fact that this guy actually truly believes this theory that body's and minds are connected and emotions have an impact on the body and viceversa. According to him, the body is capable of "storing" and "remembering" emotions in the form of changes in posture and muscle tension. Remembering those things is good according to him, because after this healing can take place. So he completely agrees with me undergoing the massages, which is nice to hear.

The idea that the tiredness and pain are the result of the study being completely finished is probably easier for most of you to understand. The hypotheses is that although I was really tired, I couldn't allow myself to feel this while I was still studying. Now the study is over, I can finally "give up" the act of keeping up appearances, and the real tiredness comes to the surface.

This is a well know fact. An example could be the fact that many people are ill on the start of their holiday.

The irritations today were interactions with other people complaining or worrying about my expressions in this blog. Due to my enthusiasm when I started this blog, I forwarded the link to a couple of friends. One of them is particularly concerned by my posts of the last few days, based on those he believes I'm not doing so good. Instead of me appreciating his involvement, it irritated me because I want to be left alone to some extent.

The other friend send me a long email complaining about the many ways in which he believes I'm mismanaging my life. He wrote it in a very confronting disrespectful way. Again, I didn't ask for this. If I need people I'll call them and tell them the story first hand. But now, these people are approaching me because they read my blog. This feels a bit intrusive. And also it's a kind of paradox. Me feeling intimidated because my friends have read something "private" about me on a blog which is open for the entire word to see....

Makes me wonder how many people really know me. Although I'm really open in real life, I can only conclude that since my blog is making such an impact on the way they see me, they saw me in a different way then my writing suggests me to be. I think I must have hidden my dark-side to some extent in real life conversation with my friends. In this blog, I don't have to worry about peoples reaction (at least I thought I didn't had to), and this makes it possible for me to just write what I am feeling without hiding any ugly details as I would normally do when I see people not reacting in a nice way to my story. In real life it's very easy to bend your words a little when you see someone is starting to get shocked by what you're saying. Here, I'm not doing that.

So this is more real in a way, don't you think?

But let's continue:

The last irritating interaction today was with the friend I was on holiday with. We had an msn conversation with lots of miscommunication. The most irritating thing was that when I asked for more information to clear up the misunderstanding, he would say he was not willing to talk anymore.

A lot of these irritations are probably caused by a newly reached 'low" in my mood. Normally quitting smoking makes me very grumpy and irritated. I guess this is probably also happening at this moment.

It all is of course very easy for the people I talked about when they are reading this to think it was not their fault because my irritations were the result of nicotine withdrawal instead of their actions. But let me tell you something: Although normally I am able to cope with some ways of people interacting with me which I'm not able to cope with now because of the withdrawal. That does not mean I don't find those interactions irritating when I'm not quitting smoking, it's just that I have more resilience to cope with other peoples misbehaviour's. 

And if my blog is too depressing for you at this moment? Well I advice you to come back later. This blog is intended as a documentation of my journey towards a better life. The obstacles on the way are also covered in my writings. Those are not ignorable for me, like they are for you.

Greetings from a grumpy Alexander.

Day 20 - Quit smoking

Got up at 11.00 and decided to quit smoking after I finished up the cigarettes I had left. I had about 5 in the first hours of the day and the packages were empty after that.

I feel like grabbing a cigarette but I just push that thought away. Regardless from that, I feel no different then normal.

Tomorrow I've got a meeting with the psychologist, let's see what he has to say about the bad days I had the start of this week, and why the holiday was so tiring.

Day 19 - First day of exercise

Got up at 13.00 again, with stiffness in my muscles and joints.

After I had breakfast, did some emailing and went to the library to get a dvd, it was 5 PM. I decided I wanted to use my rowing ergo meter again to do some exercise. I was hoping it would relieve some of the stiffness. I noticed the pain in my leg and back was not present while rowing. In the past I've had difficulty using the left leg which would go together with pain in the left part of the lower-back. Of course this is because of the herniated discs. Today this pain was not present while rowing, which I believe is a good sign.

The rest of my body was aching a lot and muscles felt weak. I only managed to have an average power output of 60 watts with a heart rate of 145 over a period of 10 minutes. This is a bad power output for such an high heart rate.
In the past I would deliver at least 100 watts with this heart rate, and 100 watts still is a bad performance.
After rowing I felt weak and tired.

In the evening I had to book hotels with a friend of mine for an upcoming holiday. This was a stressy event and took longer then I had planned. So no DVD watching tonight.

Tomorrow my colleague which I gave the group therapy sessions with (see Day 1 - Starting point), is coming over for luch. He will be here at 13.00, so I have to get up earlier then I did the last couple of days. Let's set the alarm at 10.30 and go to bed now.

Day 18

Got up at about 13:00. 

When I got out of bed I noticed a very heavy feeling in my limbs and stiffness in my muscles. This lasted the entire day. I also experienced some abdominal cramping but I didn't want to go to the toilet since my roommates were sitting in the kitchen close to the toilet. I didn't want to make embarrising toilet noises so I decided to go later in the day. This didn't work out. Therefore I experienced cramping the entire day and am constipated now. After a night of sleep, tomorrow it will probably be over.

I called my parents again. My mother answered the phone. She told me she had a bad sleep (like I expected). I told her this made me feel like I couldn't talk about any negative issues with her, since it would destroy her sleep. She told me not to worry about that, but this is just her being polite, it does not solve the problem.

I did remove some clutter today: I calculated the costs of the holiday so I could split them with my friend and I also did some emailing.

Bye for now,

Alexander

Day 17 - Returned after an exhaustive holiday

Got back from the 3-nights during city trip. I feel totally exhausted, my entire body is aching and I'm having a very negative mood.

I forgot I didn't like watching buildings and stuff like that when I booked this holiday, but this was not the only problem: The first night in the bed&breakfast I had a very bad sleep. After this I was extremely tired. It became very hard to just walk for 15 minutes. My legs felt like lead and tingled all the time. I had to sit down a lot and grabbed a beer when I did. The beer did give me some positive mood-swings but when time passed it became harder and harder to behave normally. I looked like I had been walking for days. I couldn't understand conversations, kept forgetting what I was talking about etc. In addition to this I was very grumpy, which of course was not very easy for the friend I was on holiday with. This lead to irritations and minor conflicts.

I was irritating myself a lot of the time but tried constantly not to act on it too much.

As a result of my trouble dealing with the city we stayed in the hotel more then other people would.

I returned in my own clean room and unpacked the suitcases in a very slowly fashion. In a wave of despair I decided to call my parents in order to gain some emotional support. I didn't receive what I was looking for but got a bunch of advice on proper sleeping schedule instead.

I find it also frustrating that my mother can not deal with the emotional load of having a depressed burn-out son. I felt a bit guilty when I called my parents to talk about the holiday and the problems of my life, cause as a result my mother will have a bad sleep the rest of the week cause she is busy worrying about me. Not very nice when people around you are too weak to deal with your problems.

It's an understatement to say it's not easy to be optimistic. I really don't like the speed at which "healing" of my symptoms is taken place. I thought I took a lot of rest lately and made some positive changes. As it turned out, I still don't have the resilience to cope with a night of bad sleep, nor the energy for a day of walking through the city without having pain all over my body. I don't like this. I'm skeptical towards the upcoming changes I would like to make: stopping drinking/smoking and starting exercising/meditation. I just don't believe this can have an impact big enough on me so I can be "normal".

I even was thinking about staying in some mental institution for a few weeks. But I don't believe this is a good idea, since I don't want to take antidepressants. Maybe there are institutions I could go to that offer a program without medication. I could check it out.

For now I hope my upcoming holiday (a week with 1 or 2 friends in a remote house near the water) will offer me more energy and relaxation then the one I returned from today. Before that (6 Augustus) I hope I can give up smoking and take care of the clutter in my room.

Day 13 - Packing for holiday

Got up around 11, did the light therapy again (as every day) and started getting my stuff ready for a short holiday (3 nights). I noticed I have neglected the laundry in the past weeks. I had to do 4 batches of washing to get rid of it all. I also had to do some shopping and returning a DVD before I could start packing my suitcase. It took me some time to gather the stuff I wanted to take with me but now everything is nice and tidy packed and the room is still reasonably clean.

I did experience some after-pains of the massage, especially in the legs near the buttocks and my chest aches if I touch it, even if I touch it very lightly. I was expecting much worse pain and trouble walking, so I'm happy.

Tomorrow I'll just have to add my showering products, get some fluid for my contact lensen at the opthomologist and do some vacuum cleaning. After that I'm ready for the holiday and my room will be waiting for me in a clean state untill I get back. That is a difference compared with earlier holidays, when the mess in my room would welcome me as I tried to put the suitcase in an open space on the floor.

I probably won't update the blog for a few days, unless I gather some important insights.

Please note that this blog is not intended as a diary, but as a documentation of my quest for a better life. I however, am tempted to write more about my daily activities, but if I'll do that, my blog will be spoiled with things that don't have to do anything with the subject. So that is why I don't post every day, cause not every day is an important addition to my journey.

See you soon,

Alex

Day 12 - Painfull massage

Had a weekend full of booze and lacking proper sleep. Felt exhausted when the alarm rang at 10 o'clock. Went to my first Rolfing appointment today. Rolfing is a way of massage to change the shape of the body in order to achieve a better posture that relieves chronic pain and makes movement of the limbs easier. I did have some massages like Rolfing in the past and noticed all the pains and aches I have in my body when the therapist touched me. I want these pains to go away and also because of my back problems (2 herniated disks, see Day 1 - Starting point), I thought I'd give Rolfing a try. I hope to achieve a more supple and relaxed body. Furthermore I hope the sessions will make surgery of the hernias needless. It's worth a try. Check out the before and after pics of other people. The after pic is taken after just 10 sessions.

And the best part: the posture improves more over time, when treatment is over. The first pic of this boy is before treatment, the second after 10 sessions, and the last one is taken one year after treatment. Impressive huh?


Or check out these google image results.

I must say it was a very painfull first session. Lots of aching pressure points. There were times I was almost fainting or willing to shout. The therapist said there is a lot of work to be done. I asked him at the end of the session why he looked so worried. He told me it made him feel sad to see someone of my age (25) with 2 herniated disks and so much pain and stiffness in his entire body. I left directly after he told me this, cause I didn't want to break out in tears.

I feel bruised in most parts of my body now and have more problems walking then I would have on a ordinary day. Thursday I'll go on holiday for a few days, so let's get to bed and hope these pains will subside in 2 days.

Day 8

Woke up at 10.50 AM again, before my alarmclock. So my rhythm has definitely shifted, even though I stayed in bed longer yesterday. 

Cleaned the room a bit today to keep it tidy. Did some laundry and looked for a place to stay for my holiday with a friend. We are going to Norway to a remote house near the water to get some rest.

In the evening I met with a friend. Heavy conversation, made me sad in places but I'm ok. 

Day 7 - no changes

I didn't do anything of the to-do list for today and decided to postpone taking the Daslook cause I read that at the beginning symptoms could get worse. I felt a bit ill and nauseous today and I have a date this weekend, so I decided to quit cause I don't like being all bloated and suffering from flatulence on a date. I'll try it again after the weekend.

Tomorrow in the afternoon a friend is coming over. I'll set the alarm clock at 11 AM and hope I'll get some things done before he'll be here.

Day 6 - Freeweeling

Today was theoreticaly the start of my vacation or resting period.

I woke up with a hangover, stayed in bed until 1 PM and spend the day in the kitchen surfing the web, buying hair dyes. I occasionally felt the need to do something constructive, but it would quickly subside and give place to the feeling I was free, so I didn't have to do anything. It was ok. I drank a total of 3 bottles of beer and continued surfing.

A package was delivered in the afternoon, containing a new body thermometer and two natural remedies I wanted to try for my irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). In the past I took all kinds of tests and medicine in order to improve this condition. The situation is not very discomforting at the moment, but every now and then I come across something I would like to try to see if I could completely get rid of any uncomfortable symptoms. This time, it was Molkosan and Daslook, both by A Vogel. These substances weren't very expensive, so why wouldn't I give it a try.

First I will take the Daslook untill it's empty, then I will take the Molkosan. Otherwise I'm not able to judge what substance had an effect on the IBS. In the past I took/did everything at once. I now believe that is not very benificial.

In the evening I had dinner in a Sushi restaurant with a friend. It was nice to meet eachother again.

Tomorrow I will start doing paperwork I organised when I cleaned my room. It involves things like: taxes, mail, finance, etc.

Day 5 - Study is finished

Woke up at 10.50 AM, before the alarm rang at 11.15. This means my circadian rhythm is starting to shift. Great. 

Went to the university for the meeting with my supervisor:

I got an 8 (out of 10) for my master thesis. I handed in the slip of the internship and did the minor corrections on the thesis before I handed it in in print. It was finally finished.

It made me feeling stressed and sad again: me sitting in an almost empty university building behind a computer. Thinking this was the last time I would ever be sitting there logging in, the last time I would ever print anything on the university printers, the last time I had to take a look at every individual page to check it for flaws. Probably also one of the last times I would even enter the building. My life as a student is definitely reaching it's end.

I'm not very happy with the grade (8) although it is a good grade. I'm happier with the fact that I don't have to spend time on this study ever again. But even this feels very surreal. I just cannot believe it. All those years of stressing out, doing stupid things, dragging myself to this place, waking up wishing I had a different life or didn't want to wake up at all. The stress, the pain. Is it really over? Is change possible? Are good things going to happen? Someone pinch me please...

Day 4 - Drawbacks

I hate drawbacks, just as I'm regaining control of my life, they hit me in the face:

Woke up at 5.30 AM with terrible abdominal cramping. So bad I just wanted to shout and cry. I didn't. Instead I managed to ease the pain and returned to sleep at 6.30. The alarm rang at 11.30. so I did 30 minutes of light therapy, had breakfast and drove to the friend I was talking about yesterday.  On the road I had my first disappointment of the day (if the cramping doesn't count). A car from a gardener that was riding in front of me lost some dirt which made lots of small chips in the windshield. It damaged the paint of the bonnet as well. I saved the telephone number of the company in my phone and started dialing insurance when I reached my friends place. This was not very nice for her, but it had to be done. Actually I hated it even more: I don't want to handle fuss like this with my current state of mind. I was so stressed out I was sweating and couldn't state the number of my licence plate. I just forgot it. And this phone call is just the beginning: it continues with writing letters and giving the car to the garage for one day for a valuation of the damages. I don't like all this, and I also dislike communicating with the other party, cause they didn't respond very nice to my first call. Overall an irritating event.

The second drawback hit me in the face when I looked at my planning for tomorrow. At 2 PM I have to meet the supervisor of my master thesis to receive my grade and suggestions for minor corrections before I hand it in in print. She also has to receive the grade from my internship. Here does the problem arise: I lost the slip containing the grade and approval of my internship. I went through all the papers I put in the trash yesterday to see if it was inthere. It wasn't. As a result I have to contact the supervisor of the internship again, which I hate, cause the man already thinks I lost control of my life and I should consider treatment. In addition to this, chances are he's allready on vacation. What a bummer.

The meeting with my friend was nice though....

UPDATE 2.13 AM: Found the slip of the internship, hidden between papers in a notebook. I'm glad I did not send an email to the supervisor yet ;-)

Happy again. A good starting point for sleep.... Bye bye

Day 3 - Room is clean!

The day started at 1 PM, cause I kept hitting the snooze button when the alarm rang at 11. Can you imagine, pressing a button every 12 minutes, falling asleep, and waking up time and time again? Why didn't I just turn it off or went out of bed, instead of torturing myself this way?

Nevertheless, Major progress today!
I managed to clean up the entire room. It took me about 9 hours, but at least it finally has been done. The closets still have to be sorted out but that's a project for some other time. The objective of today was just to make the room ready for use again, and I succeeded very well.

As a treat, tomorrow I'm going to meet a female friend of mine I last saw 2 years ago. This was a good motivator.

I had some emotional moments when I went through old paperwork. Trance music was coming out of the speakers at high volume and I was flipping away pages in a notebook to see if it contained something important. It was full of notes I took during the group therapy sessions in which I was the facilitator. It made me feel sad. I took out one page containing personal feedback from the group and tore out the rest so it was clean and ready for something else. What a relief.


No major stomach aches today.

Oh, here are all the empty packages of cigarettes I found in my room:


Creative right? hhahah, bye bye...

Day 2

Had a bad sleep, too light and with lots of interruptions. I got a phone call from a friend at 10.30 AM, so the goal of rising at 11 was successful. I did 30 minutes of light therapy, took a shower and a Special K breakfast to rush myself into town to have coffee with this friend. We talked about his life plan and ways to get back my grip.

I had a bad stomach ache the first hours of the day due to bloating and cramping, which hadn't cleared up during sleep like they normally do, probably because of the new sleeping schedule. So it was a painful day. I returned home at 3 PM and grabbed a beer after which I started to clean up my room. It was hard. There were a lot of times I would just stare into the mess without doing anything except sipping from my bottle of Wyborowa.

At some point I started phoning friends to see if I could have dinner with someone. This obviously was a way of avoiding my duty. I couldn't get a dinner with anyone so at 5.30 I made an agreement with myself that I would continue cleaning up until 7. I broke my promise at 6, when I was putting my network utp cable in a box. I realised a friend needed a piece of utp cable for his home. So I cutted of a piece of cable and started putting the connectors on. I drove to his home to hand the present. It turned out he had cooked a simple spaghetti for himself, but it was enough for two. He handed me a plate. I returned home at 7. I thought some more vegetables would be usefull so I bought a salad at the supermarket in addition with a sixpack of Stella Artois. I tried to do the room for another 30 minutes and watched tv from 8 untill now.

Ofcourse the room isn't finished. Yesterday I wrote I would be happy even if I just did some minor cleaning. But although I did spend a few hours at my room, which resulted in open spaces on the floor, I'm not very satisfied. I hope tomorrow I'll have less stomach ache and more energy to devote to this task.

I feel tired now and I'll go to bed soon. I'll set the alarm at 11 AM for tomorrow. Maybe I'll wake up earlier because of the light therapy. But I think 11 AM is a good goal, its 2-3 hours earlier then my normal alarm-time. I shouldn't rush things, let's do this step by step...

Day 1 - Introduction

Ok, so here I am. I got this idea in the shower this morning at 1.30 PM, that's right, PM, I stay in bed for long. The thing is; I lost control about important aspects of my life and would like to get it back. I thought it would be useful to document this journey so other people could benefit, or simply enjoy reading. I will start by stating my present situation and my objectives. From there on I will post how I travel towards these. 

Day 1 - Starting point

I handed in my master thesis for the study of psychology 2 weeks ago. Next week on Tuesday I will get the grade and after some minor corrections I have to hand it in in print. After that, I will have a few months of vacation before I need to find a way of income. So far so
good...Right?

Not really, the pressure of the study in combination with the load of my internship in which I had to give group therapy sessions for 3 months left me with burn-out like symptoms.

I lack energy, I keep forgetting what people told me, get irritated easily and have depressed moods sometimes. That is briefly how my mental status is at the moment.

OK, other important factors which are influencing my life in a negative way:

• Tidiness: Room is a mess. See for yourself...
• Organisation: A lot of paperwork needs to be organised, letters to be sent, etc.
• Planning: This needs to be made for the upcoming months and perhaps even some long term life-planning

Health:

• Symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, especially bloating, which I dislike cause I want to have a flat good looking tummy.
• Two lumbar disc hernias at L4-l5, l5-S1, both the left side, probably caused by rowing which cause pain when I walk or move
• Throat inflammation every 6 weeks, due to smoking probably
• Burnout-like symptoms, like previously mentioned

Lifestyle:

• Lack of proper regularity and rhythm: I go to bed at 4 or 5 AM and sleep until 1 or 2 PM
• Smoking, I tried to quit earlier but switched to ultra light cigarettes (0.1 mg nicotine) instead (Philip Morris one) still a package a day, like I did with regular cigarettes (0.9 mg nicotine)
• Alcohol (ab)use, about 6 bottles of beer a day, starting at 4 PM
• I don't exercise, because of laziness but also because of the hernias

That's the list I've come up with so far.

This is what I did today.

I started light therapy with a ApolloLight P1 to get my circadian rhythm back on track. I did 30 minutes at 1 PM, I believe it's allready working, it's 1 AM now and I'm feeling tired, which normally does not occur untill 5 AM.
Tomorrow I will set the alarm clock at 11 AM and I will take 30 minutes of the blue light. I hope to wake up at 9 AM naturally in about 5 days of treatment.

I tried light therapy with this device in the past and I must say it works pretty well. But ofcourse, I will keep u posted on my current progress.

Ok, so tomorrow I will rise a little earlier then normal. My major goal for tomorrow is to clean up my room. I believe this is the first step to reclaiming grip of my life. I would probably think more straight in a tidy room and it will be easier to work there.
I will be happy even when I just started, cause I've been putting it off for a long time now.

That's it for today. See you tomorrow....