Working hard, or Hardly working?

Have you recovered yet from your long weekend?  My wonderful students apparently have not, seeing as how I'm sitting here writing my blog instead of teaching.  None of my kids showed up for class today.  It's not like they have a state exam in a week or anything.  I know you're thinking that it's impossible that not a single kid showed up, but I was only supposed to have 3 anyway.  I teach in an alternative program (read:  all of the badass kids who have been kicked out of the high school attended by everyone else in the town).  There are only 7 of them in the program right now, but they can't all be in a room together at the same time, so we split them in half. (Read:  I wasn't kidding when I called them badass, and I didn't mean it in the "whoa that truck makes him look so badass" way).  And today the three who are supposed to be with me right now just didn't come to school.  So here I am. 

First of all, because it was just Memorial Day, and because I'm technically wearing my hat of English teacher right now, I am feeling the need to recommend a book to you.  You may have read it already, but just in case you haven't, you should.  It claims to be a work of fiction, "except for a few details from the author's life", yet it was written by a Vietnam War veteran and is so detailed and believeable that you are left to wonder exactly which parts were made up. It is raw, gritty, touching, gut-wrenching, and all of those other strong adjectives that you would expect to come with a book that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.  It's about love, relationships, coming-of-age, and war.  Now go order it.  You will not regret reading this book. 

You didn't know that in my other life I'm a book
critic, did you?  Haha. I'm so not. 
But I have read a few good books in my day.
This is one of them.

Ok. Moving on.  On the health front, things are going fairly well.  I'm loving the new supplements.  Remember how I told you about my sleeping problem.  (As in, I wasn't sleeping at all because I was just never tired?)  Well, two weeks in to the new pills I'm popping, things seem to be changing for the better.  I've been starting to get tired at the very appropriate time of 10:30ish, and have been waking up around 6:30, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.  Thank you, Supplements!  Sleeping at normal times is kinda fun!

Additionally, the move away from dairy is proving to be a good one, too.  My nutritional muscle test a couple of weeks ago showed that I have an issue with my stomach.  But I've never had noticeable symptoms, so we didn't spend much time talking about it.  Well, I'll tell you something:  now that I've been away from dairy (well, mostly...) my stomach feels all kinds of new.  It's hard to describe, but I really do feel noticeably better.  Which is so weird, because I never thought I had problems before.  So anyway, I'm doing a pretty bad job here, so let's just leave it at this:  I have been cooking with and drinking either almond or coconut milk, have stayed away from all yogurt, have not really eaten a ton of cheese, and have avoided most other dairy.  And I feel healthier! 

Giving up dairy = good for me
Mozzarella cheese = impossible to give up

Moral of the story:  one little change can make a big difference.  TRY IT!!!! 

Here's a question for you:  (to which I'm asking begging for responses.  Don't let me down.)

What little change have you made that has made a big difference?
(Working out once in a while;  going meatless once a week; drinking more water; using sunscreen???? C'mon.. tell me!!)

Have a healthy day,

J

Catchin' Some ZZZZZZZZs

Last year at this time, I was working a full time job with "at-risk" teenagers, coming home to two boys who were 2 and 3 years old, trying to make it to the gym with some sort of consistency (which usually meant I was there by 5:30 in the friggin' morning), etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. You get my point.  I was busy. And so, by extension, I was tired.  Like, in bed every night with eyes involuntarily shutting by 9 kind of tired. But I thought nothing of it.  I mean, I worked hard.  I was drained both physically and emotionally by the end of each day, and I needed to get some sleep. No big deal, right?

Well, as I've told you before, it was also at this time last year that my body started revolting.  And somewhere along the way, it was discovered (by pure luck), that something was growing on my thyroid.  (And I will not make you relive the post I wrote about my ridiculous self-diagnosis of thyroid cancer. But it's in the archives.  Anxiety?  What makes you think I have anxiety??) Anyway, that little discovery got me sent to 2 more specialists, and both times, my blood work came back "normal". Now here's the part where the relevance of my title comes in:  I thought that falling in to bed every night by 9 and needing caffeine by 3 every afternoon was normal. Turns out, it's NOT!! 

A good friend of mine referred me to her Holistic Specialist. I know what you're thinking: oh great, lemme guess... she was cured by a witch doctor.  I know.  I was totally skeptical too.  But seriously, what did I have to lose at this point?  All I knew was that my body was literally falling apart, I felt like garbage most days, and the only thing doctors could tell me was to try to find a new job and start doing more yoga.  So here's what happened: 

I'll totally go in to more detail about what happened at my initial appointment in a later post, but the important thing in this case is that she sent me home with a bottle of nutritional supplements (think vitamins) that were specifically for my thyroid.  She explained that even though my blood levels came back within some textbook's definition of "normal range", they may be a little bit off for what MY "normal range" is.  "Here, take these for thirty days" she instructed. "They might even cure your problem completely". Not believing it for one second, I took the bottle and was on my way.

Hi Chelsea, you are very funny.
And you are one of the reasons
I miss having cable.

Fast forward about 2 weeks (ok, maybe more- I wasn't really great at taking them every day), and now I CAN'T SLEEP. As in, I don't get tired.  Ever.  I am up, ready to chat it up, watch a movie, cook tomorrow's dinner, clean the house, whatever, at 9, 10, even 11 at night.  There were so many nights when I would lay in bed and force myself to turn off the light after Chelsea Lately.  Um, that's at 11:30!  And I would still get up and run in the morning like nothing ever happened.  What the heck happened?  OMG, was I cured?!?! 

So here we are, a few months in to my new, totally bizzare lack of sleep habit, and it's finally catching up with me.  I'm still getting up before dawn a few days a week, working an emotionally draining job, and staying up way way way too late. But the only difference is, I only work a few hours a day, so I actually have time each afternoon to make up for an hour or two that I didn't get during the night.  Not a bad plan, right?

Well, a lot of days it's working out quite nicely.  But then there are the days when the laundry is just way too out of control to ignore.  Or the days when the boys lay down for approximately 7 minutes.  Or the days when I actually have to *gasp* stay and work a full day.  Ugh, those days kill me.  So what am I supposed to do?

Truth is, I really don't know.  My sleep habits are completly messed up right now.  We all have heard that the magic number is 8 when it comes to the amount of hours our body needs to function optimally.  I heard on a health show once that your body actually functions as if it has an alcholic drink in its system for each lost hour of sleep.  Wow.  So if I'm averaging 5 hours lately, I might as well be downing 3 drinks before facing my day.  How's that for reaction time and productivity?

So if you have any ideas on how I can get a normal sleep pattern back in my life, I'd love to hear it.  I'm going to visit the Holistic Specialist again next week, and you better believe it will be numero uno on my list. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go get in the shower and head to bed.  After all, it is 11:15 at night... 



Have a healthy day, (or night)

J