The Big Adjustment

Moving from two months of unemployment immediately into working full time has been a great deal more physically exhausted than I would have expected.

In terms of movement and physical toll, my job is actually really easy. It’s all done in front of computers so I don’t have a lot of moving around to do- switching work stations, moving floors or going from the training room to the IT department, or down into the call center itself. It’s not at all a difficult job, except that sitting for hours at a time can make my padding-less butt hurt.

But for some reason, I’m always exhausted when I get home! When it hits 4 or 5 or 6pm or whenever I get off for the day, I come home, stuff my face from hunger and want to go to sleep almost immediately. Today, after only six hours, I came home and crashed, unable to stay awake through some of the video lectures that I typically watch at night.

A big part of this adjustment is reprogramming my body’s circadian rhythm. Before I started working here, it was difficult to get myself in bed and sleeping before the sunrise, and suddenly I find myself waking up around 7AM every morning, moving around, eating, and getting ready for the day. In a course of days, I have flipped my schedule around completely. I was so worried about being unable to do this that I set three alarms on my phone and one on my computer every day just to ensure that I don’t arrive to work any later than fifteen minutes early.

In addition to getting my sleep cycle back into a healthy mode, I’ve made some other big changes in my life. When I was still living overseas, my diet was based entirely on my mood- if I wanted to go gorge on Korean BBQ, I would find someone to go with and then sit for two hours, eating and drinking to my heart’s content. Whether it was the BBQ or fried chicken or some other amazing part of Korean cuisine, I chose what to eat for taste and convenience only, thinking nothing of health or my body.

Now that I’m back in a comfortable home with a good kitchen, I decided to take control of my diet again. Starting around May 1, I stopped drinking alcohol entirely, only have a small drink to celebrate getting my job and not even being able to enjoy it because the ‘dry’ life has been so pleasurable for me. I stopped drinking coffee, worried that I would quickly grow dependent on it with my early mornings.

Not only with my liquids, but I’ve cut meat out of my diet, officially a vegetarian for over a month now. As part of an effort to clean out my system and move back into healthy eating, I’ve decided on these rules as a method to take control of my diet and aggressively pursue a healthy, active lifestyle. In the past, I have found that managing my sleep cycle and diet are the keys to finding a good, healthy balance in life.

Of course, all of these changes in such a short period of time haven’t been easy. I’m tired a lot and still feel something like a zombie when I lay awake until 3am but wake up at 7 to get ready for work- but it’s been getting easier. I’m snacking very little at this point, and am back to eating breakfast and packing lunches to work every day. It’s far from anything fancy, but it’s a lot of really positive steps.

I’ll keep this up for the indefinite future, but man- I am looking forward to becoming a morning person again.