Saturday, January 31, 2015

No bathtub, no problem.


Lately, I have found myself getting a lot more stressed out than usual. It's hard for me sit in one place and just unwind. Instead, I try to fill my time outside of work by exercising, cleaning, organizing, etc., but it generally just leaves me feeling exhausted and even more stressed out. To help out with this, I've decided to carve out a little bit of time for myself to decompress. Every house and apartment I've ever lived in, until now, has always had a bathtub for me to fill up with warm water and chill in with some candles and music. Bath-time was a huge part of helping me unwind once in awhile. But now, I think I've found a way to achieve a similar effect in the shower.   

Every night within the last week before I go to bed, I light 2-3 candles, turn off the lights in the bathroom and take a long, hot shower. The dim glow of the candles makes for a very different experience while showering that's immediately relaxing and soothing, very close to those quiet bathtub nights. After, I pat myself dry, slather on some lotion all over and go straight to bed. Stressful and worrying thoughts still race in my head here and there as I fall asleep, but the new night-time shower ritual is helping me pass out much sooner. It's a small change, but it's been pretty impactful; I'll try to remember to keep up with it.

Update on Dry January: 31 days without a drop of alcohol! Amazing, but I think it's time to celebrate with a glass of red tonight. Whoo!

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