Hospital Anniversary

I’m a little behind on this one. The anniversary of my last hospital stay was actually about two weeks ago.

This one feels good. It’s now been five years since I’ve been hospitalized. There have definitely been some ups and downs during that time, but by and large it’s been a satisfactory five years. 

I’ve done a lot of things for self-care to stay out of the hospital — one thing that has helped me quite a bit are the recommendations provided in “Preventing Bipolar Relapse,” by Ruth White. Her program is broken down into SNAP: sleep, nutrition, activities, people. 

Sleep is pretty self-explanatory: get an adequate amount of sleep using good sleep hygiene: going to bed and getting up around the same time every day, don’t eat too close to bed, sleep in a cool, dark room, etc. Sleep has pros and cons for me the past couple years. I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping — especially  during a manic or depressive phase. Now, it’s really hard for me to not sleep too much. I could sleep ten hours every day if I let myself. I have a doctor’s appointment in a few days, so I’m hoping she can give me some ideas.

Nutrition: I’ve been up and down on nutrition. The big thing I’ve done well is eating lots of fruits and vegetables every day, and I think it’s made a positive difference. Where I want to improve this year is having fewer snacks — particularly the lower nutrient higher calorie snacks. I’m also going to try to not eat as much sugar.

Activities is the thing that’s gone best. Though the pandemic has limited it somewhat, I still have seen friends a fair amount, and I’ve gotten to do some fun things with my family. I’ve also kept up with my exercise and even did a lot of walking and cycling when I couldn’t run due to injury.

People have also been an important part in preventing relapse. I’ve been blessed with positive and supportive friends and wonderful family. A few times I’ve had family come and help with the kids when I was having a hard time. I’ve also kept up with my doctors and therapist who have helped keep me on track.

Here’s to five more years of staying hospital-free.

2022 Goals

It's that time of year again. I really enjoy setting goals for the year. I always have some stretch goals and some pretty doable goals. If I were to hit very few goals for the year, I would realize I made my goals too difficult, and if I meet all of them, I'd know they were too easy. Here they are:

1. Break 18:15 in the 5K
Same goal as last year. I ended up running 17:30 in 2021, but I don't see running under 18:00 this year with the amount of time I have to train and staying injury-free.

2. Run 1,000 miles
If I can stay healthy, definitely doable. 

3. Write 24 blog posts
I only wrote 14 last year, which was the lowest since this blog started in 2010. I'd like to write at least two posts per month this year.

4. Strength train an average of an hour and forty-five minutes a week
Stepping it up from an hour-and-a-half last year.

5. Run a marathon
Last year, due to injury, was the first time in 12 years that I didn't run a marathon. I hope to be able to run a marathon this fall.

6. Get to and stay at race weight
I made it to race weight last year, but only stayed there for a few weeks. I'm now well above it, so I plan to get down to race weight in a couple months, then stay at race weight plus or minus three pounds for the rest of the year.

That should do it for this year's goals.