Strengthening my Foundation #2: First Update

This is the first update in my Strengthening my Foundation Self-Care series. You can check out the introduction post here: https://www.crazycatnerd.com/blog/smf1

Self-care Activities since my Last Post

After my last post, my plan was to:

1. Fill out the worksheet

2. Try out some of the things I listed on my worksheet

3. Continue tracking my energy, brain-state, and productivity

4. Continue with my normal self-care routine

I filled out the worksheet. Here are my answers:

1. What benefits of self-care most appeal to you?

   • More energy

   • More free time

   • Less stress and anxiety

   • Personal growth

2. Which three types of self-care do you already put the most effort into?

   • Emotional

   • Intellectual

   • Play

3. Which three types of self-care do you need the most improvement in?

   • Physical

   • Spiritual

   • Environmental

4. What are three self-care activities you could try to do this week?

   • Try to go to bed at a better time

   • Do Christmas-related activities

   • Change the sheets and blankets on my bed

I did change my bed sheets and wash my blankets. It’s amazing how lovely clean sheets feel when you go to bed. I also added a habit tracker to my weekly bullet journal spread for “Christmas Cheer” and “Bed by 10pm.” I succeeded in my Christmas Cheer habit. Most days I’ve been able to do at least one Christmas activity- wearing Christmas earrings, decorating at work, filling a bowl with Christmas candy, attending a Christmas party, etc… Going to bed by 10pm was not so easy. I checked off a couple of days, but not many. 

I continued with my normal self-care routine. This means I didn’t change the way I eat, I continued exercising as normal, I continued using the Emotional Brain Training tools I know, etc...We all have normal, regular self-care activities we already do. They might not seem much like “self-care”, but they are. Self-care is anything you are intentionally doing to improve your wellness. Eating, sleeping, working, taking time to relax...these are all ways in which we care for ourselves.

I continued tracking my mood, energy and productivity which we will discuss in the next section.

Mood, Energy & Productivity Tracking

Last Week’s Results:

At the time of calculating this, I had recorded my brain state, energy and productivity levels for 22 days in a row. Last week (which is now two weeks ago, approximately, as I had a trip in between and was unable to finish this post in time) my average brain state was 2.8, my productivity was 3.5 and my energy was 3.6. Because of the way that brain state is observed (1 being the highest), all my scales are the opposite of what you’d typically use with 1 being the highest and 5 being the lowest. As you can see, I was hovering around the middle for all of them. 

The week before that I had similar results with a brain state of 2.8, productivity of 3.5 and energy of 3.2. So my energy was a touch better two weeks ago. However, I don’t anticipate seeing any sort of drastic results with this. The changes should be slowly and steadily trending toward the better after a few weeks or so. 

I found a bunch of statistics in the Daylio app that I didn’t know existed. Once I get enough data, it will be fun to look at some of the trends. Thus far, my best brain state has been a 2 and that correlates with “awake” and “productive”. My worst brain state has been a 4 which has correlated with “falling behind” on my productivity scale.

So far, I feel about the same and that is as expected.

Next Actionable Steps

How should I move forward?

First, I need to recognize that with the holidays upon us, and afterward my vacation is Walt Disney World, I’m going to have far less time to accomplish my goals. That being said, self-care is even more critical during times of potential stress or when not following a normal routine. It’s important to seek balance and be forgiving of myself.

Per usual, I need to continue with my normal self-care routine as best I can. As well as tracking my stats (brain state, energy and productivity). One of the things I’m currently doing, and have been for months, is slowly increasing my number of steps per day in preparation for all that walking I’m going to be doing in Disney World. This movement is great physical self-care!

I’m going to continue working on that goal of getting more sleep. However, I am going to soften it a bit. Instead of trying to be in bed by 10 pm, which I have not been succeeding in. I’m going to aim for 10:30 pm. Once I am successful, we can work on 10 pm.

I get a lot of satisfaction and joy from telling stories. I think I’m going to make a goal to work on my Sims 4 Story series daily- either a few minutes of writing a post or a few minutes of playing. I will also continue to try to get “Christmas Cheer” from now until Christmas.

I’m not entirely sure what I want my next worksheet to be. I would like to have a self-care planner that ensures I’m covering all the areas of self-care, but I’d like to work up to that slowly so I do not get overwhelmed. For now, I’m just going to stick with my two goals and see what happens.

Thanks for following along!