Resolution and intention

[flexagon]

I want my life to be a giant "fuck you" to hedonic adaptation.

Not sure how 2014 is going to fit into that, yet -- who knows what awesome things will happen that I'll try not to adapt to? -- but I do have a resolution. Actually, one resolution and one intention. The intention is single-tasking (I notice as I type this that I'm also eating breakfast, hmmm) since I'm pretty sure it decreases anxiety and also improves efficiency. It just never feels like it will. (I stop to take a bite of oatmeal.)

Last year's intention was to really take feedback well, ACT on feedback, do my damnedest to change something if told to change -- rather than going "hmm, well that's just where my ribcage wants to be" when Bender tells me something about my handstand. There was, of course, a painful irony in this:



but I think it worked pretty well. We get too defensive of inefficient behaviors, I think, we identify them with ourselves when really they're a thing we do. And my handstand has improved, for what it's worth.

Anyway, my unspeakably painful-to-me resolution is to get up on the first beep of the alarm clock, every day that the clock is set. No more snoozing, and ferfucksake no mindlessly turning the clock OFF and diving back into bed. You may not know this about chronic oversleeping unless you do it too, but it's really anxiogenic to not actually know when your day will begin. I've missed workouts and showers and meetings that way. And yes, I've tried this before, not as a New Year's thing. Usually I start out strong and then fizzle. So here's what I'm doing this time:

• Changing the song in my CD alarm clock often, probably every 3 days
• Hanging my nice new bathrobe next to the alarm clock, slippers on the floor underneath
• Setting up the coffeemaker the night before (but I haven't actually done this yet)
• At least in January, a contest with norwoodbridge, who's trying to be in bed at 11:30 every night.

I'll probably need some other way of staying accountable after January, maybe just posting my success rate here every month.

And in case you didn't notice the theme, these are both in service of making my life less stressful. I don't have an anxiety problem that any shrink would bother acknowledging, but I do stress more than I should; likely more than I have to; more than my co-workers do. If it's not necessary at this level, then self-identification and "I've always done it" be damned -- I'd like to cut down.

Comments

[heisenbug]

Oh, that reminds me, I think you wanted to read this article on sleep: http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm

It basically says not to use an alarm clock. :P

[flexagon]

Should the alarm clock be set, and I wake up before it goes off, and get out of bed when I want to at or before its dulcet beeping, that also counts as a win. It might even count as a double win.

The point is really to not snooze the clock -- I just didn't want to phrase it as a negative thing.

[nevers.livejournal.com]

the only thing that has kept me from snoozing is to keep my ipod touch near the bed, so that when i wake up i can groggily check my email and facebook, which is never something i don't want to do (sadly) and takes barely any energy, and by the time i've caught up on all the new things i am no longer at a place to fall back immediately to sleep; i can usually get up. it doesn't mean i get up as soon as the alarm goes off, but i usually do within 5 minutes and don't need a snooze. in case that's helpful.

i wish breaking loops were easier!! gah!

[a-kosmos.livejournal.com]

Not using the snooze button would be a tremendous accomplishment for me, as would getting to bed by 11:30. I believe a cadre of therapists have mentioned that I have bad sleep hygeine. Good luck!