Now and again, there comes a time when we just need to take a breather and hit the reset button on life. Frustrations mount, stresses build, and complications twist everything into a knotted, tangled mess. You can’t always walk away from your stressors – usually you can’t – but you can take a step back. You can take a moment to yourself and reenter the situation with a fresh perspective.
This month, that’s exactly what I’m doing: Resetting.
Resetting My Body – Starting AIP
For those who have been following the blog for awhile, you know that I’ve had trouble with chronic fatigue for about a year and a half now. For months at a time, I would need 10 to 14 hours of sleep every day. Even awake, I wandered through life in a fog, exhausted and unmotivated. Two things entirely contrary to the life of a grad student!
When my doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong, I decided to take my health into my own hands. I started researching my symptoms and found the autoimmune protocol paleo diet. No grains, no legumes, no dairy, no nightshades, and no starches. Yikes! As someone who has spent most of the past 10 years as vegan or vegetarian, it was pretty scary to think about eating animal flesh at every meal. However, all of my symptoms kept pointing to the AIP as a way to reset my digestive system and stop the extreme autoimmune reactions causing my fatigue and inflaming my joints.
This past weekend, I celebrated my birthday with all my favorite foods! Ice cream, cupcakes, pasta, chocolate… 28 never tasted so good. September first marked day one of my 30-day AIP reset. I’ll be updating SuddenSight with my posts about the experience, so keep checking back for updates!
Resetting My Mind – Taking a Step Back
The fatigue, as well as numerous setbacks with my eyesight since January, made finishing my master’s degree this summer, well, difficult. I did manage to turn in everything and have my paper accepted (hooray!) Still, moving forward I decided I needed to recognize my physical limitations.
Even on my good eye days I read at half the speed that others in my program read. When I’m sleeping 10 hours a night, it becomes virtually impossible to keep up with the 60 to 70 hour work week required to keep up with three graduate classes and teach a class. So I took a step back and slowed things down for a bit to let my body catch up.
I’m only taking two classes this fall, and I’m pushing myself to make more time for yoga classes and cooking – my favorite relaxing hobbies.
Resetting My Blog!
Taking all of this into account, I’ve also decided to shift the focus of this blog a bit. I don’t want to spoil too much, but this fall SuddenSight will be relaunching with an all-new look! Get ready for more health and lifestyle posts, a recipe section, and guest bloggers featured each month.
Stay tuned for more news!