habits – Kiki Writes About…

There are three kinds of people: morning people, night owls, and people who can do either. I happen to be a secret fourth kind of person who doesn’t like waking up period. It doesn’t matter when. Waking up pisses me off and I’m mad that I’m conscious.

There was a time in my life when I had the energy of youth that sort of overrode that anger. I don’t have time to be angry about being awake because I have shit to do. I no longer possess that kind of energy. I’ve got a middle-aged battery now.

I’ve also developed some bad habits that have drained that battery, maybe even damaged it.

Leaving aside the health issues I’ve dealt with for the last five or six or seven years that I know have made their negative impact, my morning and nighttime routines have probably done more damage, particularly my morning routine.

Back in the long, long ago of my youth, when I got up in the morning, I laid in bed for a bit, watched a little TV, and then got up. Unless I had to go to work. Then I just dragged my ass out of bed and got on with it. I might have been tired, but I found the energy to do it. There was a period of time when I was exercising in the morning for 20 to 30 minutes five days a week and did so with almost no issue at all. I was never too tired to workout. I just did it.

In the past several smart phone years, my morning routine morphed into me waking up, rolling over, putting on my glasses, and immediately picking up my phone to start my day of going through emails and scrolling through social media. Given the growing dumpster fire that is our current reality situation, I suppose it really should be no surprise that I don’t want to get out of bed. Exercising five days a week, even for ten or fifteen minutes, became an impossible task. I cut it down to three days to up the odds that the workouts would get done at all. And if I did have the energy (which was rare), many times I’d be in bed so long scrolling to catch up on my timelines that by the time I was finished, I really didn’t have time to exercise anyway.

It came to a point that one morning I was scrolling through Twitter, telling myself to stop and get out of bed, but I just couldn’t make myself. I was miserable, but I couldn’t stop until I was finished.

Doesn’t take an advanced degree to tell me that isn’t healthy.

In my desperation to fix this bad habit and improve my morning routine in the hopes I might feel better, I didn’t really give my remedy too much thought. I wouldn’t pick up my phone first thing. I’d read or journal. When I did pick up my phone, it was only to go through my email and maybe Instagram. No Twitter or BlueSky until after breakfast. Let’s how it goes.

Let’s see if I could do it.

I was sure I’d cave and check BlueSky at least, or maybe put off starting the change “one more day”.

To my surprise, I just did it. I woke up on a Monday morning, rolled over, put on my glasses, and picked up my Kindle instead of my phone. I read a couple chapters of my book before I checked my email and scrolled through Instagram. That was it. I didn’t even think about checking BlueSky or Twitter.

Not as surprising was how much easier it was to start my day, how much more energy I had, how much easier it was for me to put on my sports bra and exercise, how much easier my entire day was by putting off the deluge of worldly information.

How much easier it was to deal with that deluge of worldly information after an improved morning routine.

In the first week or so after I started my new morning routine, I caught myself a few times reaching for my phone first thing, but caught myself before I could fall into my old pattern, putting down the phone as soon as I realized the autopilot was engaged. Those were valuable saves, I think. Otherwise, I might have given in and given up.

It’s amazing how much difference a little change can make. I wonder if I can fix my whole life this way.

Better start with my bedtime routine first.

Every year I get a new planner because I like to feel like I have my life together. Yes, it’s an illusion, but I get to personalize the planner anyway I want to, so it’s all good.

In this year’s planner, I put a habit tracker. There are a few goals that I have for the year and I thought the habit tracker would be useful for them. One is one of my half-assed resolutions. I want to read at least 5 days a week. I color those days with light blue.

I also want to increase the duration of my workouts. I try to exercise at least 10 minutes most days. Those days are purple. Fifteen minute days are pink. Twenty minute days are red.

And I also want to be more consistent with my sleep schedule. The days I’m in bed, lights off, TV off, phone off before 12:30 AM are dark blue.

Now the thing is I track my sleep and my workouts in my phone. But the habit tracker gives me a different kind of visual record. I can see everything all at once, color coded and easy to interpret.

In January, I read every day except for two. I worked out every day except for four and most of those workouts were at least fifteen minutes. Filling in those squares really motivated me to keep filling them out.

The same could not be said for my sleep goal.

I didn’t make it to bed before 12:30 AM nearly half of the month. I couldn’t get a streak going longer than four days. And there are too many times that I stayed up too late two nights in a row.

Sleep has always been a challenge for me. It’s gotten worse in the last few years. And my bad habits are surprisingly resistant to the slightly self-competitive nature of the habit tracker. I like besting myself. I like creating long streaks and then trying to break them. Hell, I’m well on my way to hitting 1,000 straight days on Duolingo for the second time.

But when it comes to my sleep habits, I just can’t seem to find the groove.

Of course I’m not giving up on the habit tracker just yet. I think that in this case, with this goal, it just needs a little more time.

Rest assured, I’ll put my bad sleep habits to bed.

No, I’m not apologizing for that.