I’ve consistently had a lot of trouble with evening routines. Been thinking about giving it another go. Specifically I’d like to have screen-free evenings but I’ve never found a good way to make that stick.
Do you need your screens in the evening like I do (beeminder, music)?
I think they are fine if they are not super super distracting (5 hours reddit scroll); that’s why I’ve been thinking about repurposing an old Android phone as a “beeminder phone” that only has beeminder and youtube for music
I have tried night routines. I usually run into an issue where there will be a night I get home late at like 11PM (not usually work related other things sometimes come up). I will be too tired and break the routine. Then the next night I’m like meh and basically give up. Also generally I get stressed about the time it takes even if it is short. Though after recently being put on medication my anxiety seems to be getting better so maybe I can try again.
I get this all the time because I procrastinate bed time… So I just do my routine, but super late into the night, like from 1am to 3am. I have no choice since I have a ton of beemergencies.
Same… That’s why I procrastinate on doing it. But by having some elements of feel-goodness (music, perfume, calm light), it feels better. I’m having a good time, so it matters less if it’s too long. The problem with it taking time is that I end up sleeping late.
Oh yeah, what did you get prescribed (if it’s not too personal)? I’m glad that you are making changes!
Also don’t forget the ADHD meds…
If you can get more efficient at work, this might remove a lot of anxiety too (if you have anxiety related to work, which I sure do, but it’s getting better thanks to ADHD meds, that’s why I’m talking about this )
I got prescribed lexapro it is a SSRI. I was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Though to be perfectly honest I did not mention my focus issues mainly because I was anxious just bringing up the anxiety issue. But in a month I have another appointment as a follow up and I plan on bringing it up if my focus is still suffering (curious to see if the issue is more related to my anxiety or just an additional secondary issue). They say it takes 1-2 weeks for the medication to fully take effect.
Like I said I have noticed improvement. For example ever since I can remember I have always had what I called background anxiety. Where I would always feel anxious no matter what. It would sometimes go up or down but never go away. But now the background anxiety has become more interment with there being times where it is completely gone. During those times I feel the best I have ever have and feel like I can actually breath for the first time. Also while I still have anxious thoughts pop up I can actually seem to control them better where they don’t put me into panic mode.
I have had some side effects like GI issues, headaches and random times of extra hyperactivity, and times of sudden tiredness. But from what I have researched this can be normal when you first start. Honestly these have not bothered me that badly since I am actually starting to see some signs of hope of kicking my bad anxiety.
So I thought my screen time had looked high for what I had been doing. Well looks like a bug has been raising my screen time. I am using a beta version of ios. Shows I picked up my phone over 400 times while I was sleeping and showed 2hr and 22 mins of screen time. So apparently part of the reason for high screen time usage has actually just been a bug. Going to keep putting the screen time even though it is probably wrong to keep up the habit.
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