January Happiness Project Wrap-up

​January Happiness Project Wrap-up
            I cannot believe it is already January 31st, 2020. On the flip side, I cannot believe it is finally January 31st. This month has seemed endless (especially the last week!)
            If you’ve been following along, you know I started a Happiness Project for 2020 (based on Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project). January’s theme was energy and health. To improve my health and energy levels, I decided to:
Walk 20 minutes a day (did this every day!)

• Drink four 16 oz bottles of water per day. I did this from January 4th forward (once I made the rule for myself that I couldn’t have Sonic drinks until I finished my water for the day lol).
• De-clutter 15 minutes a day. I did really well on this until the last week.
• Check AND write down my blood sugar 3 times a day; breakfast, lunch, and supper. Did this every day!
• Write down my food. I didn’t worry about changing any eating habits at this point, I just wrote it down-the good, the bad, and the ugly. Did this every day!
• Post in my blog daily and write in my book daily. These help me with mental health as writing is one of the ways I deal with my emotions. In addition, the blog gave me a level of accountability for my resolution list. I missed one day for both (last Friday when Tom was admitted to the hospital) and another day for the book (one of the days this week when Tom was in the hospital).

                        I learned some valuable lessons this month:

• The walking really helped me deal with all the stress that was going on this month with Tom being hospitalized twice. It was also really good for me to step out of my comfort zone and try the treadmill. I enjoyed it more than I thought I ever would. The crazy thing is, I actually found myself looking forward to and almost craving the movement. I. Just. Can’t. Even.
• I thought I drank a lot of water already, but tracking what I drank made me aware that I wasn’t drinking as much as I would like. I also noticed that a couple of things that have been hurting me for quite a while (my shoulder and a cyst on my hand) seemed a bit better once I increased my water intake. Not sure if they are related or not, but I’m sure it didn’t hurt!
• De-cluttering 15 minutes a day was a challenge. Mostly because the amount of clutter around me is overwhelming! There’s the virtual clutter (e-mail, computer files, text messages, etc) and the physical clutter around my home. I will just keep working on it a little bit at a time. Working on de-cluttering my virtual clutter made me realize that I need to schedule doing that into my week or day to stay on top of it.
• Checking and writing down my blood sugar three times a day (at breakfast, lunch, and supper) was extremely helpful. I started noticing patterns (especially coupled with writing down my food). Plus just being aware of what’s going on is so beneficial.

 

• Tracking my food was also eye-opening. Like I said above, I didn’t change any eating habits; I just wrote it all down. But I started noticing what foods made my body feel good and what foods made my body feel sluggish and bloated.

 

• Writing in my blog and book: Posting in the blog helped me to have accountability for my resolutions. It was also helpful to write about what I was doing and share it with people. There were days I only wrote a sentence or two there and in my book, but it really helped me coping with my feelings. I had actually started the book a while back as a way to help me chronicle what is going on with Tom and express my feelings over it. As a teenager, I started writing poetry to help me deal with emotions (and I still write poetry) but putting all my thoughts and feelings and the nitty gritty of this battle into writing (even if nobody else ever sees it) has been very cathartic for me.

 
Overall, I’m very pleased with how January went and very much looking forward to February. Tomorrow, I’ll be posting my February list. It will include January items plus some new ones for February.