A Fragile Mind


Sleep is super important for me. I have bipolar disorder and a big trigger for mania is lack of sleep.

I started to experience hypomanic symptoms over the weekend. Luckily, me and my wife are able to notice the signs and act quickly, taking medication to help me sleep. Thankfully, I caught it in time and didn't dip into full-blown psychosis.

The mind is a fragile thing. It can be both a great tool and a savage enemy. We can use our mind to strengthen our self-image and be a positive influence in the world. We can use it to complain and tear down the things and the people around us.

For me, I'm working on balance with my mind. I have a tendency to perseverate on negative things. It's the engineer in me that's trying to solve problems, which is not a bad thing. It's good to want to make the world a better place. But some problems are too big to be solved by one person. Some problems are above my pay grade.

Last week, I mentioned my company got rid of our CEO. That caused me to fixate on what that means to my future. Honestly, that's probably one of the reason I didn't sleep well and became hypomanic. It was an instance of wasted attention. I can't fix my company. All I can do is play my small role to the best of my ability.

During the week, my food intake was a little higher. I was seeking emotional comfort. I spoke with my trainer and did spend time making sure I was doing my walks and exercise snacks. That helped, even though it didn't entirely curb my grazing.

This week is a new week. A chance to pick myself up and focus on the little things I can control: getting to bed on time; doing my morning walks; exercise snacks; checking in with my body and emotions before snacking.

My goal is this week is to be diligent about tracking and reporting my habits. I'm going to pay special attention to my snacking and hopefully that translates to weight loss on the scale. Bottome-line, learn to control what I can control and let the rest go.

Up 0.6 pounds.

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