I recently took a true vacation. A week off-grid with my family in the mountains with just a hot tub, endless trees, silence, and each other.
When I got back I could feel myself walking differently, breathing more deeply, and I kept wanting to get on my bike or get closer to sunlight.
Over the last few weeks some of that has worn off and I’ve fell into some of my non-vacation habits. It’s allowed me to see/experience some bad habits that are of my own construction.
One of my bad habits is opening my computer after 9PM. Sleep has become a cornerstone of my productivity and the most toxic contributor to my sleep is opening my computer at a certain time and then not going to bed until 1-4AM, and sometimes not at all.
I’ve found that I can maintain fairly remarkable sleep deprivation levels (remarkable to me) and still feel present as long as I remain sleep deprived. Once I get a full night sleep for many days in a row, I feel a lack of sleep in the same way I feel a fried meal… Which is to say I feel slow/sluggish/ and even sometimes sad.
I don’t neglect sleep very often anymore and that’s a good habit. Anecdotally, it’s changed how I feel day to day. Multiple times in the last week I can remember telling someone I was going to close down/finish up/or say goodnight so I could get to sleep.
I’ve gotten into a good habit of focusing on sleep. When I sleep more I’m happy. I have more energy and I feel like I’m retaining more information. I’ve started to filter all kinds of things by considering if they help me sleep better or not. It’s one of the better habits I’ve picked up. Cutting out fast food also feels right up there in terms of the impact of how I feel day to day.
There are innumerable blogs written about bad habits so I thought I’d write one about a good habit.