Day 2 was off to a stiff start after sleeping in until 9am, and then rolling out of bed so sore it was as if I had just run a marathon. Apparently Annie’s track workout and the 6x300 meters at 5:20 pace was beyond my capabilities at this point. And she was doing 600s, I only joined her for the last 1/2.

Health is Physical:

I wanted to lay around and nurse my sore body but I knew some movement would be good for it! Plus, along with 15,000 other people I could not resist signing up for the Virtual Run Across Tennessee put on by the creator of the Barkley Marathon. You need to average about 5 miles a day to virtually make it across Tennessee, so I trotted with the dog for 5 and got ‘er done. I felt so much better after the run. Some lessons just never quite sink in. Tomorrow I’m going to do some research on stretching.

Health is Mental/Emotional:

One of the first mental/emotional areas I want to tackle this month is Sleep. If sleep and I were married, we would have an abusive relationship. When I am not training 20+ hours a week, I pull an all nighter at least once a week. If my internal energy builds up without a proper outlet I am unable to go to sleep and will stay up all night. And the crazy thing is that I seem to be mostly fine the next day. Sometimes I stay up most of the night the following night as well and end up going to sleep at like 1am. Which means I stay up for 40 hours straight like once every 7-10 days. I say all of this because I honestly don’t know if my patterns are good or bad. I don’t know why my sleep is like this and I don’t know if I should be concerned. So, I want to learn more.

A few months back I read an article from Bill Gates on 5 books to enjoy over last winter and he recommended Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. THEN, just today, the book was also a recommendation by the most amazing race director ever, who I would follow around like a puppy if I had the chance, the director of the Worlds Toughest Race EcoChallenge Fiji Kevin Hodder! If I was looking for another sign.. there it is, the next stepping stone. So I got the audible version and took it running with me today.

I’m only an hour in but hold moly, I’m already learning so much, like 40% of people are morning larks, 30% are night owls, and 30% are mixed. He talks about how the natural circadian rhythms of night owls are fundamentally different than morning larks, and because our modern industrial work system benefits morning larks, us night owls are left out, feeling lazy and confused, most the time burning the candle at both ends. We have higher rates of depression and anxiety.

Another thing I found interesting was that we have this process where adenosine builds up in our system through the day providing “sleep pressure.” When we sleep enough the adenosine clears and then we build it up the next day. When we don’t sleep enough we carry some and start building more. If we chronically don’t sleep enough we are always walking around with adenosine which makes us sleepy. This process is totally independent of our personal circadian rhythms, our natural 24(ish) hour cycle. So if we stay up all night, at 3am adenosine is screaming “sleep” and the circadian rhythm is also screaming “sleep”, but at 8am, adenosine is screaming “sleep” and circadian rhythm is “awake”, so you are less tired at 8am than you were at 3am even though more time has gone by without sleep. This is definitely true for me and explains why I make it all the way until 1am the following night when my night owl circadian rhythm cycles back around to actually fall asleep.

This is just the start but I’m already feeling like I HAVE to experiment with my natural rhythms. More on this in time…

Health is Spiritual:

Today for my spiritual action I gathered up the family for low tide and we headed to the tide pools for some exploration. Adventure and exploration are the yearning of my soul. Every experience I have had of connecting directly to my soul results in a call to explore and seek new experiences as a pathway to provide COLOR to the soul. The message always comes to me as COLOR, more “Earth Color”. It sounds weird, but it makes sense when I’m getting the message. It’s hard to find the right words to explain it, but I’ll keep trying.

So Earth Color today looked like tide pool exploration and apparently the message of the day was abundance! Since I was 10, I have been on the look out for sea urchin shells. I love them. I collected them with my family when I was young and since living here again I am always on the lookout for them. I’ve collected 16 of them (I just went and counted) in the almost 4 years we have lived here and they sit in my windowsill where I can admire them often.

Well, today the message of the tide pools was abundance when you follow the pull of your heart! I was like a kid in a candy store and I think I actually had to brush away a few tears that rolled down my cheek. This was the bounty from todays tide pool trip. I’m taking it as a message that I’m heading in the right direction. Also, sitting and organizing these by size was meditative, creative, and had that aspect of pausing time. I think that’s soul work right there.

Insights

This focus of three healthy actions rocked my world today. I’m super jazzed to see where this is going to take me and I feel really optimistic. Thanks to everyone who has reached out and urged me to move forward with it, :).

Until Tomorrow, In good health…