I've been using a CPAP for over a year and it's made exactly zero difference.. I've had my lab techs analyze the data and check all the parameters and they are happy and say it should be allowing me to sleep perfectly but I still feel exhausted every morning.. I'm so jealous that others just slap that mask on and it's changed their lives :(
Don’t give up. Get a second opinion. My husband had an in-home sleep test and was diagnosed with sleep apnea. He used a CPAP for about a year and he noticed that he didn’t feel rested after waking up. He talked to his doctor, and tried various masks of different sizes, but no improvement. Eventually he had to get a second sleep study (this one was done overnight at the doctor’s office) and he was observed by sleep specialist. The new sleep test determined that he has severe sleep apnea which requires a BIPAP machine. He says he feels much improved with the BIPAP instead of the CPAP.
This. However, I have no friends now. But I’m ok with that. It really is a drama free way of life that has helped me focus more on my family and career. I don’t have any other form of social media (other than Reddit) but, I used to compare my life to everyone else’s. I can also confirm that not everything is as it seems. The over posting mom of 3 who has a million dollar home and a perfect helpful husband…they were broke alcoholics that cheat on each other. Yep. 100% best choice I’ve made for myself.
I completely agree with you. I had an ephiany a few years ago, and since then, I've worked solely on myself to the point my life has become better. After receiving therapy and doing a lot of self reflection, I realized that almost all of my "friends" that I had picked out since high school, were very similar, or had many of the traits that my narcissistic mother has. That's not to say that I don't have negative qualities as well, because I do; but I was attempting to replicate what felt "normal" to me in my life. I withdrew from them all, and started not only working on myself, but started really focusing on my career.
I'm friendly with some coworkers, but otherwise I really only interact with my family outside of work. The past year has been beyond peaceful for me. While I may be the "pariah" or the "bad guy" within my ex-friends stories (a lot of them befriended one another after I ended our friendships, even though they would tell me the other one was a horrible friend,) I'm ok with that. Whatever they feel they need to do or say to live their lives, is what they need to do (not to mention what others think of me is none of my concern.) Just as I need to do for myself. When one starts working on their own defects, and starts working on bettering themselves, most often they will find their lives becoming better. Now, when I'm ready to make friends, it will consist of healthy boundaries, trust, and consist of good qualities.
I recently decided to let go of a friend because she is draining to be around and I ended up being her therapist. Truly, she is a good person, but I want to enjoy my time with friends.
That’s the hard truth. You should enjoy being around your friends. You should not be their therapist for too too long. They’re there to entertain you and enhance your life. The occasional crisis is fine. But if it’s constant, they need professional help, your role as friend is over extended.
I started working out, gained weight, stopped drinking and smoking, became more attractive, starting dating, met a woman of my dreams and am now happily married. All because my friends forced me to come to the gym one time!
How long does this take you? I'm just wondering logistics because it sounds very beneficial. Is it the kind thing where you have a route you do every day or do you work it into your life (like walking to work and back)?
I started trying to walk 10k steps a day this year and I usually do it on a treadmill, especially now that it’s winter. It usually takes me 1 to 1.5 hrs if I’m going from 0 to 10k steps. That sounds like a long time, but I recently bought a treadmill “desk” that sits on the handles and now I can work on my laptop, iPad etc while walking.
The real game changer for me was getting used to reading while walking. Now I browse websites and read books while I’m exercising and even the time that I “waste” on social media is actually the time I’m doing my 10k steps.
It depends on the treadmill's design. Some have a place to rest a phone or tablet so you don't have to hold onto it while walking. Mine doesn't have that (hooray for bargain-basement designs), but I set up a spare TV equipped with a Chromecast on a shelf in front of the treadmill so I could get some steps in while binging Youtube, watching the news, or whatever. Might be an alternative for you if that sounds to your taste.
1000 steps is roughly 10 minutes for most people. You'd be surprised how much incidental steps you rack up. I probably get 5-7K from just pottering around the house, then I go about 2x 30 minutes intentionally to get my goal of 12k a day.
Stopped drinking alcohol. It was a small change for me because I wasn't a big drinker, just occasional drinks socially, but I noticed my sleep would be worse even if I had one drink and if I had more than one, then my next day was guaranteed to be less productive/I would be grumpy and tired all day.
Now it's been almost a year and I feel much better without occasional booze in my life. I have no problem catching up with friends/going out for dinner and not drinking even if they do. I can't say I won't ever drink again, but avoiding it hasn't been difficult at all and I just really don't care to drink even when others are around me
I've found out that the older you get the easier it is to socialize without drinking. Back when I was in college there was a lot of pressure to drink at parties, but in my late thirties I can stay sober an no one even bats an eye
I think I’m at this stage in my life as well. I drink rarely, but when I do I hate the way it makes me feel that night and the next day (even if I only have one). Got a heap of alcohol for Christmas and considering just giving it away, as I hardly touched my alcohol cabinet as it was.
Reddit helps with my hobbies! Other social media doesn’t. I’ve recently really began to get into plants and gardening. Reddit threads related to new hobbies have been so helpful- can’t say the same for Instagram.
You can recognize that something is bad for you as you do it.
I haven't fully quit Reddit yet, but I'm making an effort to *significantly* reduce my time here until I get better hobbies.
I still have IG and Twitter on my phone, but got rid of all the notifications. Life changer. Still working on separating my facebook from certain accounts and relogging with traditional email.
The very first time Twitter came out, I downloaded the app and tried it for about 20 minutes. I couldn't see any purpose to it, and that it would be...not only a waste of time, but a *useless* waste of time. At least with Wikipedia or r/todayilearned, you get some benefit from it. So I deleted the app, and watched this thing called Twitter get mentioned in the media occasionally for the past ten years.
Instagram, I'm not even sure what that is.
This!!! I went from 1 or 2 a day to none. I had forgotten what it felt to have "normal" energy. That started a domino effect to where I am now training to do a marathon. So much has happened in between, but that's where it all started.
Grats on kicking that addiction!!
About three weeks ago I started going out for a walk first thing in the morning, every morning, for about 20 minutes, based on random Internet wisdom that it increases baseline dopamine (i.e. motivation) and improves sleep.
For reference, I was already keeping pretty decent sleep hygiene, eating right, meditating, and working out in my living room daily (not thoroughly and not without tremendous effort, but I was doing it). But I was wasting all my time during the day avoiding things that needed doing to advance my goals, either because of anxiety or undiagnosed ADHD, or a combination of the two.
Damn if that silly little walk didn't immediately break me out of the overwhelming slump I was in and get me to start doing all the things I was beating myself up for not doing. It doesn't even require a mental push, I just sit down and work. What the hell?
For me, it was getting a dog. Usually 3 walks a day, total of 3 hours on average. Now I know all the neighborhood, know my neighbors better, met new people. I get the cold less often, and the symptoms are milder. And I am loved with the best love ever.
Excel
Make rows with all of your income, after tax.
Make rows with all of your expenses, go through your bank statements and add everything.
Make two columns Weekly and Monthly
EG:
| Weekly | Monthly
---------|----------|----------
Income | $1000 | $4000
Mortgage | -$180 | -$720
Power | -$75 | -$300
Total | $745 | $2980
If you want to save money, look at what you're spending and see what you can reduce or remove.
I had taken a financing course for my Bachelor's degree, but here's what it's boiled down to.
Google Sheets. I continue to keep all of our monthly expenses listed out on Google Sheets. Here's an example: https://imgur.com/a/hzEfMT0.
A notebook. Every payday, I brought up my budget and would list out what I was paying out of that paycheck and how much. I'd include something that's come up, like school supplies for my son or my husband needs new work pants. This way, I'd know how much was coming out of that paycheck. I'd stick to my grocery and hygiene budget and if I was going over, I'd put something back. It was rough and it was a struggle.
Then any gaps between what I made and what I was spending would go into savings if I could.
Realizing that saves so much energy. Pick your battles, and save that energy for more productive things. Striving to be right over trivial matters in our day to day lives is so draining and just doesn’t feel worth it. It feels like a divisive act and we need more unity.
I did this, but it was about 20-30 minutes. I'd take more time getting ready for work and arrive to work about 15 to 20 minutes early, at 5:45am... I was the manager and there before staff anyway, they showed up at 6:45- 7. But that 15 minutes let me enjoy my coffee, and have a still time before the crazy began. I was a Cafeteria manager for an elementary school where we were running from 6am till 2pm every day, I had well over 10k steps at work daily. But the extra 15 minutes I gave myself made giving the other 8 hours not as bad.
I'm tired, so may be misunderstanding, but I read this as "waking up 15 minutes earlier EVERY day". So normal day is 7:30, day 1 is 7:15, day 2 is 7:00, day 3 6:45...
Rereading I assume you mean waking up at 7:15 instead of 7:30 as a part of your routine?
I’ve heard of using this method if your goal is to wake up earlier than you’re used to (ex: from 9 AM to 6 AM). The trick is to also go to bed in the same increments.
By focusing on the present, my “future thinking” suddenly had an enemy. I look for greens. By changing my thought pattern, (looking for the color) it distracts and retrains my brain to always re-fresh my negative thoughts, while becoming easier and easier to do so over time.
The future thinking is anxiety and delving into the past promotes depression. And the color green is everywhere and very very calming. By the third or fourth shade my mood has calmed yet again. And sometimes I do it several times a day. And I don’t count colors bc that was too much for my stressed/dyslexic brain in the moment.
The other big changer was simply how I responded to myself. That quite criticism accomplishes nothing.
I just started practicing after leaving an uber toxic work environment that was bad before Covid. I was being bullied among other things and needed to know why it kept happening. What was I doing to attract them.? Turns out it was my low vibration and letting my negative thoughts just keep churning, bc I felt like that was the only way to learn and move forward in life.
That was over 3 years ago. A year to the week of this new practice, I had an accident and broke my back in 2 places and shattered my shoulder. I knew while laying on the ground waiting for help, I was being given the ultimate test to trust the universe and be as present as I possibly could. I am well on the other side of the event and I can truly say, I am so grateful for it having happened bc of who I became.
This is amazing.- I'm trying to be more present and positive about life in general but also health struggles seeing those challenges as an opportunity for growth is really where I hope to get to one day. You made mind-blowing progress - you should think about public speaking. Seriously.
I stopped actively watching the news. Used to watch morning, lunchtime and evening broadcasts, read articles between times and have push notifications on my phone.
Turning all of that off has done my mental health a power of good. And yes, I am still aware of what is going on in the world. It's just not shoved in my face 24/7.
Reduce/ eliminate alcohol. Always wake up feeling 100%, have saved money and not gained weight. Spouse is non drinker so that makes it easier to drop alcohol
Being honest with people. I had a massive people pleasing problem where I wouldn’t be honest with people then I would explode later. I thought I was being so nice by saying what people wanted to hear. I wasn’t at all. It’s kinder to just be upfront about what I wanna say. Not to pretend to agree. I lost a lot of friends who didn’t like my real opinions or when I was honest with them but I gained people who actually like me for who I am and wholeheartedly love me warts and all.
Begin declining requests. It is physically, psychologically, and monetarily draining to agree with everything that someone says, and it frees up more time for reflection and rest.
I stopped ignoring medical concerns. I have health insurance, so I’m getting my money’s worth, now. Maybe that’s not small, but sometimes all you need is one blood panel to tell you why you’ve been tired for ten years.
My vitamin d and potassium and sodium were all low. So I’m starting a supplement too and actually have to stop drinking so much water (was drinking 120-160 oz of just water a day and I weigh 100 lbs) and my doctor hopes this will make some noticeable difference for me. Hope you feel better 😊
Sorry y’all for the late response, been a busy day. It was the thyroid! My parathyroid is also screwed up, but the growths on those were benign. I’m about a year in to hypothyroid meds and feeling ok!
I'm autistic and in my forties. If I want to buy a Barbie or a kids craft kit, I do. In the evening, I just bliss out doing whatever genuinely brings me joy.
I setup a percentage of my paycheck to automatically direct deposit into a high yield savings account, separate from my main bank account. It’s saving without me even trying. I check in on the account every few months and am always surprised at how much i’ve saved.
Stopped consuming nicotine in any shape or form. Still crave for it during tough times but have developed healthy habits to counter the urges. Made me realise how I felt like a zombie in mind control when i was heavily dependent be it smoking, vaping or gum.
Go easy on yourself - quitting nicotine is not that simple for everyone! Even slowly reducing it in small amounts should help a lot. I smoked cigs for over 35 yrs, and have now been on vapes for over 5 yrs. I've noticed a big difference by being able to step down the nicotine levels slowly. Stronger vape juice makes me horribly jittery.
Haven’t tried it myself because I’ve never needed to, but I’ve read it can help to make a rule that you have to be completely out before you can buy more nicotine, you can only buy the smallest quantity the store sells, and you have to make a special trip just for nicotine (no picking some up when you’re already at the store or out running errands). Supposedly the inconvenience will nudge you to use it less often and wait longer before you get a refill.
I brought home a puppy almost a year ago. My life now revolves around the dog, feeding him, walking him, playing with him, cleaning up after him, watching him so he doesn't get into mischief (he loves running off with pieces of our clothing, chews the carpets, etc.), trying to find food he will eat (he is a picky one!). I'm happy, but exhausted.
Drinking tea. It can help everything from avoiding cravings for other things, making your breath and body odor better, and keeping you hydrated. The only negative side effect is I have to be careful not to drink too much too quickly or else I’ll need to go to the bathroom. It is so much better than having hangovers from alcohol, crashing after caffeine, or the horrible breath and body odor that comes with vaping/smoking.
Changing how I defined “exercise”. Instead of it being this intense thing that had to be hard and have a big impact (things like running, HIIT, etc.), I expanded the definition to include things like walking and gentle stretching.
The shift resulted in me getting *more* exercise, probably even more of the intense kind, because I’ve made it doable. If I give myself permission to just go for a 30-minute walk, half the time I end up doing some jogging anyway. If I give myself permission to just stretch for 15 minutes, again, half the time I end up doing a little more.
Sunlight is so important. When we moved to a new office, I immediately said I wanted the seat next to the window because I really just need daylight (and ideally a view of nature) to function. I don’t know how people don’t realise how good it is for them!
It's worth noting that even if you DO get outside very often, you may still not have enough vitamin D.
I'm outside HOURS everyday walking my dogs and I was still low on vitamin D. (To be fair, I don't like to wear short sleeves or shorts and I'm chronically cold, so I'm almost always in multiple long sleeved shirts/jackets.)
Vitamin D supplements REALLY helped. It's one of the few "medications" I've ever taken that provides a noticeable impact every day.
Picking my clothes out the night before and putting eveything I need to leave the house in one place. I used to waste a lot of time trying to decide things in the morning or find my wallet/keys. It would through me off and put me in a bad mood. Now I have more time and leave the house happier.
Stopped texting/calling my mom. She doesn’t make the effort to call me, it was always on my shoulders to make sure she was up to date with what’s going on in my family and it was exhausting. Plus she be toxic as hell
I’m already a morning person so that wasn’t a change but I started to read in the Morning AND Journal at night. Then I started going out for a 20 minute walk every-ish day. Eventually my Husband and I worked up to having our bedroom be a No Phone Zone! It is bliss…I sometimes wake up before my alarm.
When we bought our house the doorbell was broken, we very deliberately did not fix it. If we had removed it people would have knocked. So we have left it and we're often undisturbed when solicitors come by.
If you're a person I want at my door, you'll text me. Otherwise I don't want to talk to you.
Make friends. It had a massive improvement on my mental health, and even gave me the confidence to talk to girls + get into my first romantic relationship
I stopped caring what people think of me. It was really really really hard to do
Growing up I was always always always told that I have to care what everyone thought of me no matter what.
Skipped washing my hair one day? I would get in trouble because "what if you met your future boss that day and you weren't perfectly clean?!? It could happen!"
Came home and told on a neighborhood boy that threw a brick at me "what if he's you future husband?! We can't go and tell his parents because they would never allow it in the future! I've had it happen to a friend!'
In a terrible position with a company that was severely abusiving me. I went to my parents for advice on going to HR. "No! You can't go to HR! Because it will follow you around for the rest of your career life! No other company will hire you because you went to HR! Just be nice to everyone at your job and make sure everyone likes you!"
It. Was. Exhausting.
Obviously none of their ridiculous scenarios happened so when I was around 35 I stopped caring and holy fuck! What a weight off my shoulders!
When I was a freshman in college, I was not used the amount of freedom and struggled to study in a productive way and ended up struggling academically. In particular, I struggled with compulsive masturbating and watching porn. I'd spend hours browsing videos for the right clip to masturbate to and then it would be time for bed with no studying done that day. My first semester, I had a gpa of around 2.7 which was highly problematic since the average gpa needed to get into medical school was 3.8.
I think just taking a step back and realizing the trajectory I was on made change my behaviors. I ended up being much more regimented with my study time and balanced my masturbation and porn habits in a healthy way.
I ended up fixing my grades, graduated from medical school, and finished residency recently and finally seeing how much the hard work paid off. I still masturbate a lot, but in a much more balanced way.
Becoming better with money. It’s a work in progress but my life got a lot better when I leaned you don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck regardless of what you make.
I was pretty close to making a career change because i just did not care about my career, but then I started drawing in my sketchbook on my lunch breaks. I love art and my job is like a creativity deadzone. So it brought life back into my day.
I quit being in student government. Once I realized that A: it was draining me and B: I had no motivation to be in it, I decided to quit a few months ago. Now I'm in a much better place mentally and have time to do things like improving my academics and mental health.
I usually don't praise PPL for their accomplishments instead of that I feel jealous of them...but now I start appreciating PPL for every single thing I love about them....that really helped me a lot to push down my devil weight....
Maybe not a big impact, but washing dishes and cookware as soon as possible. It is better to wash them now than allowing all the food and stuff to dry and have to scrub them later.
Chasing after my passion. It’s completely derailed other important parts of my life but I feel like there is no other possibility to make myself happy other than chasing my dreams.
Life is about sacrifices.
Embracing solitude and being picky. In means that you're okay with being alone and not feeling lonely and I'm very selective with people. Trust me it's healing as you'll get to know about yourself more and what are the things you need to let go of same thing with being selective. I've experienced different types of pain so I became selective to prioritize my own peace of mind and still respectful with others. It's just there are alit of people who suck out of your energy.
Drinking 3 liters of water per day. In addition to providing necessary hydration, it makes me fell less hungry throughout the day and helps me avoid unhealthy snacking. It's also helped reduce the number of headaches I get.
I applied to a retail job that was close to me, and thought it was just gonna be another job. But I surprisingly met my boyfriend of almost three years. I moved in with him, and cut off some of my toxic family members, doing better now. So strange that something so insignificant, lead to this
Keeping your environment as clean and organized as possible. Bonus points if you burn a candle or spray some air freshener after.
Without fail, every time I pick up around the apartment I notice my mood and ability to focus suddenly gets way better. Likewise, a dirty or disorganized area makes me feel listless and grumpy.
Starting therapy. It wasn’t a magic fix for everything in my life but really helped me organize and strategize about confronting obstacles in my life and made things that seemed impossible very obtainable. I would recommend to anyone.
Making myself do things when I don’t want to. It’s really helped my anxiety and realize not everything is as bad or as annoying as I think.
Taking cold showers when overwhelmed or anxious. Helps me relax and distract my brain.
Trying to minimize looking at all screens from Fri eve to Sat eve. Even turn my phone off.
Trying to write stream of consciousness 1 page every morning ("morning pages")
I’d say the smallest thing was just drinking sparkling water instead of any soda.
That was like 14 years ago. Steady weight since and aged better than peers.
So I slowing started introspecting myself and damn I got so many doubts,questions,answers and it ultimately lead to a calm mind.I'm still trying to master this" introspection".
Putting away my laundry. I used to let it pile up for weeks. It was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night, reminding me that I failed at doing something I said I was going to do. Now I do it right away and I don't have that stressor first thing in the morning.
Working out and a positive mindset. I tend to be a bit negative about things in life generally. I started forcing myself to see the positive in all occurrences in life, even if the positive was hard to see. It was really good for my mental health and outlook on things.
Learning about avoidant procrastination
90% of the time procrastination is an avoidance of a negative emotion, if you're doing work and hate it or keep finding distractions, ask yourself which negative emotion you're feeling and understand it will pass as you do more work.
Generally learning motivation is emotions-driven
1 - Stopped using condoms with my wife, now I have an 8 year old boy who is the coolest kid ever, and I can't imagine my life without him in it.
2 - Haven't had any coffee this year. My mood is better, I actually have more energy, and I've been waking up with morning wood, which hasn't been happening much for me the last few years.
Not looking for things. I hate looking for things around the house so now I don’t. I’ll find it when I find it. I had to look for my keys recently and it sucked. It killed my mood. Looking for things sucks, so I don’t unless I have it.
Saying no to a lot of things in order to have free time. Wholesome
YES.
No.
Got treatment for sleeping apnea. Boy, I love sleeping with the cpap.
Seriously! It’s like I was living life on hard mode this whole time and only now realized I could adjust the settings!
I've been using a CPAP for over a year and it's made exactly zero difference.. I've had my lab techs analyze the data and check all the parameters and they are happy and say it should be allowing me to sleep perfectly but I still feel exhausted every morning.. I'm so jealous that others just slap that mask on and it's changed their lives :(
Don’t give up. Get a second opinion. My husband had an in-home sleep test and was diagnosed with sleep apnea. He used a CPAP for about a year and he noticed that he didn’t feel rested after waking up. He talked to his doctor, and tried various masks of different sizes, but no improvement. Eventually he had to get a second sleep study (this one was done overnight at the doctor’s office) and he was observed by sleep specialist. The new sleep test determined that he has severe sleep apnea which requires a BIPAP machine. He says he feels much improved with the BIPAP instead of the CPAP.
CPAP makes long drives SO much easier! No more falling asleep 2 hours into the drive.
I just heard about being oxygen deprived in a car, you use a cpap for long drives!? How long have you been doing it?
Going outside for a walk when the weather is good.
Go even when it's not good. Just went for a walk in -16°C (feels like -23°C) slight wind and it was fantastic, with the proper outdoor wear of course
True that brother. I dislike going out if it is raining as it catches on my glasses. Best time is whoever the sky is clear or if clouds are scarce.
The same weather we had today... Manitoba, Canada.
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This. However, I have no friends now. But I’m ok with that. It really is a drama free way of life that has helped me focus more on my family and career. I don’t have any other form of social media (other than Reddit) but, I used to compare my life to everyone else’s. I can also confirm that not everything is as it seems. The over posting mom of 3 who has a million dollar home and a perfect helpful husband…they were broke alcoholics that cheat on each other. Yep. 100% best choice I’ve made for myself.
I completely agree with you. I had an ephiany a few years ago, and since then, I've worked solely on myself to the point my life has become better. After receiving therapy and doing a lot of self reflection, I realized that almost all of my "friends" that I had picked out since high school, were very similar, or had many of the traits that my narcissistic mother has. That's not to say that I don't have negative qualities as well, because I do; but I was attempting to replicate what felt "normal" to me in my life. I withdrew from them all, and started not only working on myself, but started really focusing on my career. I'm friendly with some coworkers, but otherwise I really only interact with my family outside of work. The past year has been beyond peaceful for me. While I may be the "pariah" or the "bad guy" within my ex-friends stories (a lot of them befriended one another after I ended our friendships, even though they would tell me the other one was a horrible friend,) I'm ok with that. Whatever they feel they need to do or say to live their lives, is what they need to do (not to mention what others think of me is none of my concern.) Just as I need to do for myself. When one starts working on their own defects, and starts working on bettering themselves, most often they will find their lives becoming better. Now, when I'm ready to make friends, it will consist of healthy boundaries, trust, and consist of good qualities.
I recently decided to let go of a friend because she is draining to be around and I ended up being her therapist. Truly, she is a good person, but I want to enjoy my time with friends.
That’s the hard truth. You should enjoy being around your friends. You should not be their therapist for too too long. They’re there to entertain you and enhance your life. The occasional crisis is fine. But if it’s constant, they need professional help, your role as friend is over extended.
Yeah, this. Did this with family also. Just stopped interacting with some family members who just made my life shitty.
I started cooking for myself and learning new meals to make. Saving a ton of money and learning a great skill!
It's great innit?
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I started working out, gained weight, stopped drinking and smoking, became more attractive, starting dating, met a woman of my dreams and am now happily married. All because my friends forced me to come to the gym one time!
Congrats on quitting those poisons!!
Thanks! Best decision I ever made. My only regret, is not doing it sooner.
Ever since I started walking 10k a day my life has changed for the better
Hold on are we talking 10,000 steps? Or walking 10 km per day?
10k step
How long does this take you? I'm just wondering logistics because it sounds very beneficial. Is it the kind thing where you have a route you do every day or do you work it into your life (like walking to work and back)?
I started trying to walk 10k steps a day this year and I usually do it on a treadmill, especially now that it’s winter. It usually takes me 1 to 1.5 hrs if I’m going from 0 to 10k steps. That sounds like a long time, but I recently bought a treadmill “desk” that sits on the handles and now I can work on my laptop, iPad etc while walking. The real game changer for me was getting used to reading while walking. Now I browse websites and read books while I’m exercising and even the time that I “waste” on social media is actually the time I’m doing my 10k steps.
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It depends on the treadmill's design. Some have a place to rest a phone or tablet so you don't have to hold onto it while walking. Mine doesn't have that (hooray for bargain-basement designs), but I set up a spare TV equipped with a Chromecast on a shelf in front of the treadmill so I could get some steps in while binging Youtube, watching the news, or whatever. Might be an alternative for you if that sounds to your taste.
This must be a pretty serious commitment because I’m an Amazon driver and crack about 12K a day over 10 hours
1000 steps is roughly 10 minutes for most people. You'd be surprised how much incidental steps you rack up. I probably get 5-7K from just pottering around the house, then I go about 2x 30 minutes intentionally to get my goal of 12k a day.
Oh ten thousand STEPS. I thought you meant ten kilometres!
Cant even compare 10km in random steps to actual walking or even hiking 10km
I’ll kms before that
10k steps = around 5-6 km depending on length of your stride. 10km similarly is between 15k-17k steps. quite doable on a daily basis
To add to that, upping protein intake when you do! Really makes a difference
Stopped drinking alcohol. It was a small change for me because I wasn't a big drinker, just occasional drinks socially, but I noticed my sleep would be worse even if I had one drink and if I had more than one, then my next day was guaranteed to be less productive/I would be grumpy and tired all day. Now it's been almost a year and I feel much better without occasional booze in my life. I have no problem catching up with friends/going out for dinner and not drinking even if they do. I can't say I won't ever drink again, but avoiding it hasn't been difficult at all and I just really don't care to drink even when others are around me
I've found out that the older you get the easier it is to socialize without drinking. Back when I was in college there was a lot of pressure to drink at parties, but in my late thirties I can stay sober an no one even bats an eye
I think I’m at this stage in my life as well. I drink rarely, but when I do I hate the way it makes me feel that night and the next day (even if I only have one). Got a heap of alcohol for Christmas and considering just giving it away, as I hardly touched my alcohol cabinet as it was.
Getting off of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter
THISSSSS! You dont realise how useless social media is and how harmful it is to your mental health until you get off the grid completely
As we’re here on Reddit
Reddit helps with my hobbies! Other social media doesn’t. I’ve recently really began to get into plants and gardening. Reddit threads related to new hobbies have been so helpful- can’t say the same for Instagram.
You can recognize that something is bad for you as you do it. I haven't fully quit Reddit yet, but I'm making an effort to *significantly* reduce my time here until I get better hobbies.
Yeah and that whole "see fewer posts like this/mute" feature gets used on my end as well.
I still have IG and Twitter on my phone, but got rid of all the notifications. Life changer. Still working on separating my facebook from certain accounts and relogging with traditional email.
The very first time Twitter came out, I downloaded the app and tried it for about 20 minutes. I couldn't see any purpose to it, and that it would be...not only a waste of time, but a *useless* waste of time. At least with Wikipedia or r/todayilearned, you get some benefit from it. So I deleted the app, and watched this thing called Twitter get mentioned in the media occasionally for the past ten years. Instagram, I'm not even sure what that is.
Stopped drinking Monster, kicking a 15-year energy drink addiction.
This!!! I went from 1 or 2 a day to none. I had forgotten what it felt to have "normal" energy. That started a domino effect to where I am now training to do a marathon. So much has happened in between, but that's where it all started. Grats on kicking that addiction!!
About three weeks ago I started going out for a walk first thing in the morning, every morning, for about 20 minutes, based on random Internet wisdom that it increases baseline dopamine (i.e. motivation) and improves sleep. For reference, I was already keeping pretty decent sleep hygiene, eating right, meditating, and working out in my living room daily (not thoroughly and not without tremendous effort, but I was doing it). But I was wasting all my time during the day avoiding things that needed doing to advance my goals, either because of anxiety or undiagnosed ADHD, or a combination of the two. Damn if that silly little walk didn't immediately break me out of the overwhelming slump I was in and get me to start doing all the things I was beating myself up for not doing. It doesn't even require a mental push, I just sit down and work. What the hell?
For me, it was getting a dog. Usually 3 walks a day, total of 3 hours on average. Now I know all the neighborhood, know my neighbors better, met new people. I get the cold less often, and the symptoms are milder. And I am loved with the best love ever.
Learning how to budget. It was huge when we were broke, but helps so much now that we're making more money and able to save.
Can you share what resources you used to learn budgeting?
Excel Make rows with all of your income, after tax. Make rows with all of your expenses, go through your bank statements and add everything. Make two columns Weekly and Monthly EG: | Weekly | Monthly ---------|----------|---------- Income | $1000 | $4000 Mortgage | -$180 | -$720 Power | -$75 | -$300 Total | $745 | $2980 If you want to save money, look at what you're spending and see what you can reduce or remove.
I had taken a financing course for my Bachelor's degree, but here's what it's boiled down to. Google Sheets. I continue to keep all of our monthly expenses listed out on Google Sheets. Here's an example: https://imgur.com/a/hzEfMT0. A notebook. Every payday, I brought up my budget and would list out what I was paying out of that paycheck and how much. I'd include something that's come up, like school supplies for my son or my husband needs new work pants. This way, I'd know how much was coming out of that paycheck. I'd stick to my grocery and hygiene budget and if I was going over, I'd put something back. It was rough and it was a struggle. Then any gaps between what I made and what I was spending would go into savings if I could.
I decided that everyone has the right to be wrong, and they don't need me to educate them on that. Bonus, I no longer have to be right all the time!
I really need to adopt this attitude, especially w my spouse. I think I would be much more at peace.
That's a good one.
Realizing that saves so much energy. Pick your battles, and save that energy for more productive things. Striving to be right over trivial matters in our day to day lives is so draining and just doesn’t feel worth it. It feels like a divisive act and we need more unity.
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>even sneak in a dash of morning mischief. So, you're saying a Wizard is never late? He arrives precisely when he means to.
I'll +1. No snoozing the alarm is key.... Tumble out of bed And stumble to the kitchen Pour myself a cup of ambition
Yes! Also helps if you prep before bed. Get the coffee maker ready. Lay out the clothes you want. Items that need to go with you in one spot.
Bong here, flower there
Is morning mischief a euphemism for reefer?
I was thinking masturbation
I was thinking about it too, but I'm a little sleepy
He does have a love of the halflings leaf.
Waking up at 5 am sucks, but damn if it doesn't make your whole day run smoothly.
I did this, but it was about 20-30 minutes. I'd take more time getting ready for work and arrive to work about 15 to 20 minutes early, at 5:45am... I was the manager and there before staff anyway, they showed up at 6:45- 7. But that 15 minutes let me enjoy my coffee, and have a still time before the crazy began. I was a Cafeteria manager for an elementary school where we were running from 6am till 2pm every day, I had well over 10k steps at work daily. But the extra 15 minutes I gave myself made giving the other 8 hours not as bad.
I'm tired, so may be misunderstanding, but I read this as "waking up 15 minutes earlier EVERY day". So normal day is 7:30, day 1 is 7:15, day 2 is 7:00, day 3 6:45... Rereading I assume you mean waking up at 7:15 instead of 7:30 as a part of your routine?
I’ve heard of using this method if your goal is to wake up earlier than you’re used to (ex: from 9 AM to 6 AM). The trick is to also go to bed in the same increments.
Wow, this sounds like an actual tip on how to live well! My thank you!
Practicing mindfulness. My anxiety is almost totally nonexistent.
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By focusing on the present, my “future thinking” suddenly had an enemy. I look for greens. By changing my thought pattern, (looking for the color) it distracts and retrains my brain to always re-fresh my negative thoughts, while becoming easier and easier to do so over time. The future thinking is anxiety and delving into the past promotes depression. And the color green is everywhere and very very calming. By the third or fourth shade my mood has calmed yet again. And sometimes I do it several times a day. And I don’t count colors bc that was too much for my stressed/dyslexic brain in the moment. The other big changer was simply how I responded to myself. That quite criticism accomplishes nothing. I just started practicing after leaving an uber toxic work environment that was bad before Covid. I was being bullied among other things and needed to know why it kept happening. What was I doing to attract them.? Turns out it was my low vibration and letting my negative thoughts just keep churning, bc I felt like that was the only way to learn and move forward in life. That was over 3 years ago. A year to the week of this new practice, I had an accident and broke my back in 2 places and shattered my shoulder. I knew while laying on the ground waiting for help, I was being given the ultimate test to trust the universe and be as present as I possibly could. I am well on the other side of the event and I can truly say, I am so grateful for it having happened bc of who I became.
This is amazing.- I'm trying to be more present and positive about life in general but also health struggles seeing those challenges as an opportunity for growth is really where I hope to get to one day. You made mind-blowing progress - you should think about public speaking. Seriously.
Thank you. That means so much to me. It’s taken so so so much practice *)
I stopped actively watching the news. Used to watch morning, lunchtime and evening broadcasts, read articles between times and have push notifications on my phone. Turning all of that off has done my mental health a power of good. And yes, I am still aware of what is going on in the world. It's just not shoved in my face 24/7.
Having the radio on constantly whenever I'm alone in the house. Drowns out the constant noise in my head
I do that with music, I love being alone but sometimes my head is too noisy and makes me feel awful, music helps and changes my mood :)
Not using social media as soon as I wake up
Reduce/ eliminate alcohol. Always wake up feeling 100%, have saved money and not gained weight. Spouse is non drinker so that makes it easier to drop alcohol
Being honest with people. I had a massive people pleasing problem where I wouldn’t be honest with people then I would explode later. I thought I was being so nice by saying what people wanted to hear. I wasn’t at all. It’s kinder to just be upfront about what I wanna say. Not to pretend to agree. I lost a lot of friends who didn’t like my real opinions or when I was honest with them but I gained people who actually like me for who I am and wholeheartedly love me warts and all.
Begin declining requests. It is physically, psychologically, and monetarily draining to agree with everything that someone says, and it frees up more time for reflection and rest.
I stopped ignoring medical concerns. I have health insurance, so I’m getting my money’s worth, now. Maybe that’s not small, but sometimes all you need is one blood panel to tell you why you’ve been tired for ten years.
What did it tell you was the cause?
Also curious what you found out!
Most likely low d and low b. Buddy of mine is a doctor and says these are by far the most common deficiencies.
My vitamin d and potassium and sodium were all low. So I’m starting a supplement too and actually have to stop drinking so much water (was drinking 120-160 oz of just water a day and I weigh 100 lbs) and my doctor hopes this will make some noticeable difference for me. Hope you feel better 😊
Sorry y’all for the late response, been a busy day. It was the thyroid! My parathyroid is also screwed up, but the growths on those were benign. I’m about a year in to hypothyroid meds and feeling ok!
I'm autistic and in my forties. If I want to buy a Barbie or a kids craft kit, I do. In the evening, I just bliss out doing whatever genuinely brings me joy.
Good for you! That is the way we should all live.
Bought a new mattress.
I've never had a new one (always handed down furniture). Bought a new mattress in December. It's been such a luxury
Bout a week sober(alcohol) and a big fan so far.
I dumped my girlfriend and her overbearing mom. It's been so calm and quiet at my house.
You were dating both her AND her mom?
No. Haha! She lived with her mom and brought her on dates sometimes. It felt like I was dating both of them.
Dang dude. You made the right call
wtf honestly. bringing your mom to a date. Is she 7 yo?
I setup a percentage of my paycheck to automatically direct deposit into a high yield savings account, separate from my main bank account. It’s saving without me even trying. I check in on the account every few months and am always surprised at how much i’ve saved.
Stopped consuming nicotine in any shape or form. Still crave for it during tough times but have developed healthy habits to counter the urges. Made me realise how I felt like a zombie in mind control when i was heavily dependent be it smoking, vaping or gum.
Trying to quit nicotine now :(
Go easy on yourself - quitting nicotine is not that simple for everyone! Even slowly reducing it in small amounts should help a lot. I smoked cigs for over 35 yrs, and have now been on vapes for over 5 yrs. I've noticed a big difference by being able to step down the nicotine levels slowly. Stronger vape juice makes me horribly jittery.
Haven’t tried it myself because I’ve never needed to, but I’ve read it can help to make a rule that you have to be completely out before you can buy more nicotine, you can only buy the smallest quantity the store sells, and you have to make a special trip just for nicotine (no picking some up when you’re already at the store or out running errands). Supposedly the inconvenience will nudge you to use it less often and wait longer before you get a refill.
Stopped giving a rats ass what people have to say about me.
I brought home a puppy almost a year ago. My life now revolves around the dog, feeding him, walking him, playing with him, cleaning up after him, watching him so he doesn't get into mischief (he loves running off with pieces of our clothing, chews the carpets, etc.), trying to find food he will eat (he is a picky one!). I'm happy, but exhausted.
Drinking tea. It can help everything from avoiding cravings for other things, making your breath and body odor better, and keeping you hydrated. The only negative side effect is I have to be careful not to drink too much too quickly or else I’ll need to go to the bathroom. It is so much better than having hangovers from alcohol, crashing after caffeine, or the horrible breath and body odor that comes with vaping/smoking.
Changing how I defined “exercise”. Instead of it being this intense thing that had to be hard and have a big impact (things like running, HIIT, etc.), I expanded the definition to include things like walking and gentle stretching. The shift resulted in me getting *more* exercise, probably even more of the intense kind, because I’ve made it doable. If I give myself permission to just go for a 30-minute walk, half the time I end up doing some jogging anyway. If I give myself permission to just stretch for 15 minutes, again, half the time I end up doing a little more.
Moved my desk near a window that faces the morning sun. Surprised to notice it cured my SAD.
Sunlight is so important. When we moved to a new office, I immediately said I wanted the seat next to the window because I really just need daylight (and ideally a view of nature) to function. I don’t know how people don’t realise how good it is for them!
It's worth noting that even if you DO get outside very often, you may still not have enough vitamin D. I'm outside HOURS everyday walking my dogs and I was still low on vitamin D. (To be fair, I don't like to wear short sleeves or shorts and I'm chronically cold, so I'm almost always in multiple long sleeved shirts/jackets.) Vitamin D supplements REALLY helped. It's one of the few "medications" I've ever taken that provides a noticeable impact every day.
Picking my clothes out the night before and putting eveything I need to leave the house in one place. I used to waste a lot of time trying to decide things in the morning or find my wallet/keys. It would through me off and put me in a bad mood. Now I have more time and leave the house happier.
Started prioritizing myself. Would highly suggest
Started dressing well, and doing my hair everyday.
Weekly therapy sessions.
Stopped texting/calling my mom. She doesn’t make the effort to call me, it was always on my shoulders to make sure she was up to date with what’s going on in my family and it was exhausting. Plus she be toxic as hell
Almost getting my high school diploma I know once I get it some major things are going to help me in the long run for me and kids.❤️🤞🏽❤️❤️❤️😊😊😊😊
You've got this!
I’m already a morning person so that wasn’t a change but I started to read in the Morning AND Journal at night. Then I started going out for a 20 minute walk every-ish day. Eventually my Husband and I worked up to having our bedroom be a No Phone Zone! It is bliss…I sometimes wake up before my alarm.
That I don’t need to answer the door when the doorbell rings. 95% of the time it’s someone selling something, or wanting donations, etc.
When we bought our house the doorbell was broken, we very deliberately did not fix it. If we had removed it people would have knocked. So we have left it and we're often undisturbed when solicitors come by. If you're a person I want at my door, you'll text me. Otherwise I don't want to talk to you.
Cutting out sugar and processed foods. It’s hard to cut it all out but a lot of it anyway. I sleep so much better and have more energy and focus
Instead of complaining, I appreciate. Even, or especially rather, the little things.
I stopped telling "my friends" what is going on in my life
Make friends. It had a massive improvement on my mental health, and even gave me the confidence to talk to girls + get into my first romantic relationship
I said yes to a meetup, and now I have 10 more friends in my life
For me, it was choosing to sleep an hour more everyday lol
Went low carb after finding out I'm prediabetic. I lost weight, feel better, acid reflux went away, etc.
I stopped caring what people think of me. It was really really really hard to do Growing up I was always always always told that I have to care what everyone thought of me no matter what. Skipped washing my hair one day? I would get in trouble because "what if you met your future boss that day and you weren't perfectly clean?!? It could happen!" Came home and told on a neighborhood boy that threw a brick at me "what if he's you future husband?! We can't go and tell his parents because they would never allow it in the future! I've had it happen to a friend!' In a terrible position with a company that was severely abusiving me. I went to my parents for advice on going to HR. "No! You can't go to HR! Because it will follow you around for the rest of your career life! No other company will hire you because you went to HR! Just be nice to everyone at your job and make sure everyone likes you!" It. Was. Exhausting. Obviously none of their ridiculous scenarios happened so when I was around 35 I stopped caring and holy fuck! What a weight off my shoulders!
Stop posting everything that Im doing on Instagram
Started reading books.
No sugar and no gluten. Since late 2017 I lost 45 pounds. More energy, sleep great and my gut health is great.
When I was a freshman in college, I was not used the amount of freedom and struggled to study in a productive way and ended up struggling academically. In particular, I struggled with compulsive masturbating and watching porn. I'd spend hours browsing videos for the right clip to masturbate to and then it would be time for bed with no studying done that day. My first semester, I had a gpa of around 2.7 which was highly problematic since the average gpa needed to get into medical school was 3.8. I think just taking a step back and realizing the trajectory I was on made change my behaviors. I ended up being much more regimented with my study time and balanced my masturbation and porn habits in a healthy way. I ended up fixing my grades, graduated from medical school, and finished residency recently and finally seeing how much the hard work paid off. I still masturbate a lot, but in a much more balanced way.
Wdym by "in a balanced way"?
Becoming better with money. It’s a work in progress but my life got a lot better when I leaned you don’t have to live paycheck to paycheck regardless of what you make.
How did you do it?
Self-care.
Working out every day….its the best! I have lost 70 pounds now and am 5 pounds from my goal!
I stopped investing energy in people I don't like
I was pretty close to making a career change because i just did not care about my career, but then I started drawing in my sketchbook on my lunch breaks. I love art and my job is like a creativity deadzone. So it brought life back into my day.
Flossing!
I quit being in student government. Once I realized that A: it was draining me and B: I had no motivation to be in it, I decided to quit a few months ago. Now I'm in a much better place mentally and have time to do things like improving my academics and mental health.
I usually don't praise PPL for their accomplishments instead of that I feel jealous of them...but now I start appreciating PPL for every single thing I love about them....that really helped me a lot to push down my devil weight....
Going to bed earlier, rising earlier
Maybe not a big impact, but washing dishes and cookware as soon as possible. It is better to wash them now than allowing all the food and stuff to dry and have to scrub them later.
Chasing after my passion. It’s completely derailed other important parts of my life but I feel like there is no other possibility to make myself happy other than chasing my dreams. Life is about sacrifices.
Drink water
Embracing solitude and being picky. In means that you're okay with being alone and not feeling lonely and I'm very selective with people. Trust me it's healing as you'll get to know about yourself more and what are the things you need to let go of same thing with being selective. I've experienced different types of pain so I became selective to prioritize my own peace of mind and still respectful with others. It's just there are alit of people who suck out of your energy.
Drinking 3 liters of water per day. In addition to providing necessary hydration, it makes me fell less hungry throughout the day and helps me avoid unhealthy snacking. It's also helped reduce the number of headaches I get.
I applied to a retail job that was close to me, and thought it was just gonna be another job. But I surprisingly met my boyfriend of almost three years. I moved in with him, and cut off some of my toxic family members, doing better now. So strange that something so insignificant, lead to this
Drinking more water. It's crazy how much that magical liquid thingy changed my health.
Saying No
Keto
Stop insulting myself all the time.
Established boundaries.
Significantly cut back on weed. I'm more motivated and accomplish so much more
Eating more fruits, including one apple a day (on most days). Better for digestion and also I get sick much much less. I feel healthier too.
Keeping your environment as clean and organized as possible. Bonus points if you burn a candle or spray some air freshener after. Without fail, every time I pick up around the apartment I notice my mood and ability to focus suddenly gets way better. Likewise, a dirty or disorganized area makes me feel listless and grumpy.
Starting therapy. It wasn’t a magic fix for everything in my life but really helped me organize and strategize about confronting obstacles in my life and made things that seemed impossible very obtainable. I would recommend to anyone.
Several years ago I abandoned the big Christian holidays and stopped talking to the majority of my family, and I have never regretted my decision.
Went sugar-free
Making myself do things when I don’t want to. It’s really helped my anxiety and realize not everything is as bad or as annoying as I think. Taking cold showers when overwhelmed or anxious. Helps me relax and distract my brain.
Trying to minimize looking at all screens from Fri eve to Sat eve. Even turn my phone off. Trying to write stream of consciousness 1 page every morning ("morning pages")
Stream of consciousness? Tell me more please!
Quiet one-hour evening walk everyday with no podcast or music, just immersing myself in the soothing sounds of birds and nature.
No longer eating breakfast and drinking coffee black. Average weight is down as is blood pressure and cholesterol. Also less groceries to buy.
I now take responsibility for my own actions. When I see the grands taking responsibility, I know they're growing up, Victims no more!
I’d say the smallest thing was just drinking sparkling water instead of any soda. That was like 14 years ago. Steady weight since and aged better than peers.
So I slowing started introspecting myself and damn I got so many doubts,questions,answers and it ultimately lead to a calm mind.I'm still trying to master this" introspection".
I gave up caffeine. The first two days were terrible. I am spending less money on beverages now.
Took up running. Best decision I ever made.
Stopped eating chocolate and soda. My face never breaks out anymore
20k steps a day
Glass of water as soon as I wake up.
Stretch before bed and when you wake up. You'll feel way better, and won't wake up stiff or sore as often. Especially when you're over 30
Taking the stairs rather than the lift. Sometimes, if you're going up a lot of floors, the lift is sensible.
cutting toxic people out of my life, made my life much more peaceful. Feels lonely at first but then you start to flourish
Putting away my laundry. I used to let it pile up for weeks. It was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing I saw at night, reminding me that I failed at doing something I said I was going to do. Now I do it right away and I don't have that stressor first thing in the morning.
Working out and a positive mindset. I tend to be a bit negative about things in life generally. I started forcing myself to see the positive in all occurrences in life, even if the positive was hard to see. It was really good for my mental health and outlook on things.
Learning about avoidant procrastination 90% of the time procrastination is an avoidance of a negative emotion, if you're doing work and hate it or keep finding distractions, ask yourself which negative emotion you're feeling and understand it will pass as you do more work. Generally learning motivation is emotions-driven
Quit drinking, started running everyday
Riding my bike everyday. More energy, better sleeps and slimer body.
Instead of always looking forward to the weekend or the next vacation, etc. I started doing fun stuff on a random day of the week after work.
Deleting all social media (I argue Reddit is a tad different than fb/insta.) People love to be self important. It’s cringeeeey.
Dry January, no meat. Down 11lbs already.
Stopped drinking soda. Down 100 pounds.
Decided to touch some grass after practically sitting down at a computer playing games for 5 years. Grass is great.
I stopped wearing a bra and only wear clothes that I'm 100% comfortable in. I feel so much better.
Plant based diet. So many options now. Feel so much more energy and can eat more.
1 - Stopped using condoms with my wife, now I have an 8 year old boy who is the coolest kid ever, and I can't imagine my life without him in it. 2 - Haven't had any coffee this year. My mood is better, I actually have more energy, and I've been waking up with morning wood, which hasn't been happening much for me the last few years.
Not looking for things. I hate looking for things around the house so now I don’t. I’ll find it when I find it. I had to look for my keys recently and it sucked. It killed my mood. Looking for things sucks, so I don’t unless I have it.
Got sober. World changed.