Creating My Own User Manual with Health Logs
A Friday night when I lit the kerosene stove for the first time.
While lying on the sofa, I gazed blankly at the flickering blue flame, and beyond that, white steam from the humidifier.
white steam from the humidifier.
What is this?
It's just sooooo luxurious...!!!!!
My body, stiff from the week's fatigue, felt like it was melting away...
I fell into the silly illusion that 'maybe I was a Meiji Meltykiss chocolate...'
to the point where
I was incredibly healed by this once-a-year scenery of the beginning of winter☃
I only feel healed at the beginning, and after that, it just becomes part of the daily scenery😂
It was a Friday where I felt happy to be so peaceful,
enough to think, 'This is such a luxury!'
If possible, I wish these peaceful days would continue every day, but
the body and mind have biorhythms, so that's difficult to achieve every day.
So, thinking I might be able to make those biorhythms a little gentler, I started keeping a health log✍︎
As for the trigger for this,
I hold a qualification as an acupuncturist and massage therapist,
and there is a way of thinking in Eastern medicine that made my heart feel lighter.
It explains the characteristics of two opposite elements, such as the 'front and back' or 'shade and sunlight' of things,
Each has the opposite meaning, but one exists only because the other exists
They maintain balance by constraining each other
They repeat cycles of amplification and attenuation
These are just part of the way of thinking, but I especially like these three.
Things that might be categorized as 'minus,' like feeling depressed or irritated,
and things that might be categorized as 'plus,' like feeling happy or joyful,
both are necessary and exist by balancing each other out.
I used to think it was better not to have negative aspects, but when I learned these words,
I came to the conclusion that 'I don't have to get rid of irritation or depression.'
Also, the third point, 'repeating increases and decreases,' can be replaced with the biorhythm of emotions, but
there is also the idea that 'you don't have to get rid of them, but it might be easier if the swing is smaller.'
Once you pass 40, getting too caught up in your emotions starts to become physically exhausting (lol).
It's a way of thinking that fits me perfectly right now, and since then, I've been mindful of my "swing".
That said,
I still have times when I get frustrated to the point of losing control.
There are also times when I feel so down I wonder if I'm going to sink into the depths of the earth.
I'm sure that won't ever go away.
Even so, having a strategy to manage my mood makes a real difference in how long I let things drag on.
It feels like I'm constantly updating my own personal user manual through these health logs.
Since things like age and the times we live in are never static,
I feel that the things and activities that help me manage my mood
will continue to change as well.
The idea that "the more drawers of mood-management methods you have, the better!" really resonates with me right now 😊
However, the task of increasing these drawers is quite difficult, and I feel that, surprisingly, we don't really know ourselves that well.
But, there's the part of me that says, "This is who I am!!" and then there's the fuzzy, unformed part that is my "play".
I believe having a good balance of these two leads back to the idea I mentioned earlier.
I have a personal rule that "it's better to have one core," but
if you take it too far, you can become stubborn.
So, I write in my health log and past journals with the intention of increasing my list of mood-management methods to accommodate that "play" part 😊
Therefore,
the purpose of keeping a health log isn't to "avoid illness or prevent feeling unwell,"
but to increase the number of days I can spend comfortably, even if just by one.
After all, there are things you can't do anything about, no matter how careful you are.
When I'm not feeling well physically or mentally,
"Oh, could this be that time of the month again?"
"Could the weather be turning bad?"
Once I understand these vague patterns,
it can provide a little bit of comfort, like thinking,
"I won't push myself today" or "I'll use that strategy."
Today, I'm taking a breather during my journal time, collecting pieces of knowledge about myself like this ☃
Thank you for reading until the end!