The importance of a healthy lifestyle when trying to achieve an important goal
The importance of a healthy lifestyle when trying to achieve an important goal
I never had a structured day plan. I would have a rough todo list and go by it. Some days I slept in, some days I worked until 3am, some days I would go for a run and some days I would have a few drinks with friends. But I realized that whenever I move into a different lifestyle, whenever I overdo or underdo an activity, it throws me off and my productivity and sanity would take a toll.
What does it do to us when we do not listen to our body?
I realized that in many of these situations, I would not listen to my body. I would push it in one direction or the other too much.
When I decided to write a book recently, I thought to myself: “Let’s push it to be done in a week”. And I would work a minimum of 12–14 hours a day, I did not do any sports during that time despite playing tennis once a week, I ate pre-cooked noodles out of the fridge, I ate fast, a whole bowl within 5 to 10 minutes, and I sat with my back cumbled over my working room table. I did not pause, I did not reflect. I just worked.
Even though I had a first draft after that first week, I was mentally and physically exhausted. I needed a break. Urgently. But I pushed further. And things did not get better. I pushed too hard and my nose started running, my throat got dry and my energy got depleted. I needed a break. And so I took a break. Three to four days of work, still much work, but slower. And I realized that I wasn’t productive, I would distract myself, my mind would run errands and go in a million directions. It would question, doubt, become addicted to the phone and Youtube videos. It wasn’t in a good state of mind. It wasn’t calm anymore.
And I realized how badly I have been treating myself, my body, my energy. I have failed to take care of myself and the failed caring showed in how I would go through my day. I became less motivated, less focused, less energetic. I was simply tired and drained.
And then there were these days of drinking a glass of wine with friends that soon became not only one drink but three, four or five. Not only wine but cocktails, not only soft alcohol but hard one. They told me — “come on, I don’t want to drink alone “— or, “come on, let’s try this cocktail, that sounds fun”. And in that moment it was fun. But the next day? I was exhausted. My mind was in a freeze, I was overly emotional and needy, my body was lacking something and till this day I haven’t figured out what it was, but it was in a longing state of “I am missing something, I don’t know what it is, but it is missing”. And I was absent from most of real life, hiding under the blankets on my bed, being unmotivated and tired.
And yet, I told myself — let’s push through, let’s do that. Let’s work on the book. and I would do that despite being utterly tired and exhausted. It took its toll. Again I felt sick and tired.
Does it mean I should never drink again?
Of course not. It also doesn’t mean that I plan not to drink anymore. But I realized that if I want to finish a project I care about, I need to be careful of what input I give my body and how I treat it. And if i realize that one glass of wine is all fine, but three or four kill the cat, then it is on me to make sure that I do not drink more of it.
The same goes with working overly many hours even though I feel my body to be tired and needing a rest. When I overpush my body, my body pushes back and falls into exhaustion mode and it is on me to make sure that this does not happen.
The same goes with eating too much or food that is not doing good to my body. I realized for example, that I love bread. We had bread on Sundays at home when I was a kid. And it was the best food ever to eat that yummy grainy brown bread with butter and a bit of salt, or a bit of liver sausage or ham or cheese. I just loved it. But over the years, I realized that whenever I eat bread, I cannot stop eating it, it’s almost like a bread-addiction. And when I would it, my body gets fatty, bloated and I would get less motivated, more sluggish and less energetic. It would let my body fall in lazy trance. While I wrote my book, one day I went to the food market. Normally, I restrict myself to not buy any bread or only one or two pieces, because I know of my tendency to go wild on it, but as I was in my mode of “oh, I already achieved so much and I am tired and on the urge of addiction, I need someting now that gives me pleasure”, I bought half a loaf of bread. It was huge. And I ate it within three days. I almost inhaled it. Bread with egg, bread with cheese, bread with marmalade. It was delicious, but at the same time like an addiction. And during and after these three days, I felt how my body bloated up, how I became unfocused and dizzy. It did not do good to me. Not because of the bread itself, but because of overeating that bread and not being able to put a stop to it. It did not treated my body well.
How to treat our bodies well?
I realized that I need to listen to my body and to be very careful about the process of doing so. I first wrote “I need to do structured management”, but that is not true because our body knows what it needs, but it difficult to listen to it.
One example — yesterday evening I was meeting a friend for dinner. We met early on and thus when I came back home, it was 9:30pm and I felt that I still have some time left to work on my book design. The last weeks, I had incredibly productive times late at night and was working up till 3 am. But this structure only worked out during those days, where I could sleep in the next morning and get my proper hours of sleep. But I knew that today I would do an hour of sports in the morning, for which I signed up to.
I sat down and started working. And as expected, I got into a rush of motivation and positive energy and was highly productive. At 11pm I checked the clock. I wanted to stop working, I knew I should have, but I kept designing my book, I got excited, “damn, I am so productive right now” did I tell myself. Well. At 00:06am, I finally found the strength to stop. I wrote a short day plan for the next day and went to bed. And I realized that I stopped listening to my body in the last hour of working. I started to feel tired, my shoulders and back started to hurt from the long sitting. I was yawing several times. I had merely 6 hours of sleep, but it was much better than the four I often had otherwise. And on reflection, it felt good. It was an improvement compared to the over-long working routine in which I would then skip my morning sport, because I would be too exhausted. It felt damn good. This time I started my day stronger, I did my sports routine as planned, I started writing this article on time. And I had time to think things through. Not rushed, not completely overworked from the day before. It felt good.
We internally know when our bodies are tired, when they need sleep, when we are hungry and when they need to move. But it is hard to let the body determine what we have to do, because that often goes against the grain of the daily doings — the work has to be finished, the kid wants to play with us, our clients have requests and our own mind and ourselves, we have things we want to finish.
Nonetheless, to be healthy long-term I believe that it is important to listen to our body and determine what it needs. Even if that is not always working out as we wish, some small tweaks here and there make all the difference. Two cocktails less to not feel absolutely drained the next day, 20 minutes of sports to get into movement, one more vegetable instead of a bar of chocolate, one hour more sleep instead of scrolling down our phones, and the added energy, the extra motivation, and the intentional focus is priceless. It feels great and propels into other areas of life as well. :)
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