Remedial Self Care

Inspirational song: You Gotta Be (Des'ree)

This isn't a new year's resolution, per se, but this seems like a good time to step back and reset how I am taking care of myself. I've been loose and sloppy with my pill-taking, horrible with my diet, and I haven't allowed myself good sleep in months (not that my body or brain would cooperate anyway). I'm taking myself back to school, so to speak, and letting in a little hokey internet advice about self care. Some conversation or other that I googled made lots of things pop up in my ads and video suggestions. So while I was on YouTube with nothing better to do, I watched a few of those "signs of iron deficiency" and "what to take for adrenal fatigue" kinds of videos. No, I'm not running out saying "That's it! It wasn't lupus, it was (X trending disorder) all along!" But they did shame me enough to want to change a few basic behaviors.

I'm starting slow. One of them said swear to yourself that you'll be in bed by 10 pm every night for a month, you can make it a month, come on, it isn't so hard. (I'm paraphrasing here.) I thought to myself, I can do that. I just have to blog earlier, and stop putting off even deciding the topic until midnight. There are a couple of foods to cut out, some easier than others. I'd find it easier to cut out caffeine than sugar and dairy, but I'll tell myself I'm making the attempt. There were some herbal supplements that looked like they might calm stress while I'm waiting for the runaround to catch up with me on my last diagnosis (no phone call from the rheumatologist today, despite me wishing extra hard to hear from her). I haven't decided whether to drop money on any new pills, though, what with me skipping the ones I'm supposed to be taking already.

I've already done myself some good cutting my coffee consumption in half by swapping out golden milk for part of the coffee in each cup. I mix mine with equal parts of ginger and turmeric, and a heavy hand of cloves. There's cinnamon in it, too, but I barely taste it. I've reached the point, after six weeks, where I am thrown by plain coffee. It doesn't taste right anymore. I'm willing to try to swap out the dairy milk for almond or coconut; I just haven't done it yet. I downed a cup of it right before retiring to my room early, in the hopes that it would calm me down and let me slide right on in to this going-to-bed-by-10 concept. It's just one month. Come on. I can do it.