One of the downsides of lab work is that a lot of people (maybe half my lab) works a 6 day week. I don't have to (I'm not paid for it), but I'm still trying to impress my boss/make him think that I am serious and dedicated to my work after the lead debacle. Truth be told, I do actually really like what I'm doing in lab at the minute. I'm working on some compounds that have really cool colours (pink, orange, green and aqua), which is kinda fun! Anyway, my plan for the rest of the day (interesting to me, boring for everyone else!) is:
now - 3:00 Lab.
3:00 - 3:15 Walk back to room, pick up dinner (chili) on the way so that it has time to defrost (I think I posted about this, but last weekend I cooked lots of food for myself and then froze it.)
3:15 - 3:45 Snack/Lunch (apple with peanut butter and plum)
3:15 - 4:30 Go running along the tow path (my favourite place in the whole world is the tow path by the river near by house. The one at college isn't quite as good, but I'm really luck to still have a tow path near me. I've never run along it before, and I rarely run outside, so I'll see how it goes! Annoyingly, the gym is closed today, so that's why I'm not going there and swimming, which is what I'd really like to do.)
4:30 - 6:30 Shower, do laundry, start rice, read (I'm (re) reading "What the Dog Saw" by Malcolm Gladwell. I'm enjoying it so far, but I much prefer "Outliers", which is another one of his books. The good thing about "What the Dog Saw" is that it's short stories that are each about 25 pages, so it's good for pre-bed reading!)
6:30-8:00 Dinner
8:00-8:30 Set up vitamins. I've been bad and haven't taken them for a really long time, so I need to get back into the habit of doing that. To "kickstart" myself I'm going to set them up for the next four weeks (I have a little holder thing) so that I don't have to worry about getting out all the little bottles every day.
8:30 - 9:00 Breathing. I haven't used my Coherence program for a really long time, and I'd like to get back into that. I have spent (a small amount of) time doing it, but not with the program and I'd like to get back into that.
9:00 - 10:30 Read or watch a movie
10:30 - 11:00 Take psyllium and set up aduki beans for breakfast tomorrow (they need to soak overnight).
So, thrilling plan for today, I know.
This weekend I'm not going to eat junk - candy, chocolate, crisps, anything else like that. I've found that it's really easy to get a bag of something and then just finish it, which obviously isn't great, so I want to try to break that habit. Depending on how things go this weekend I might try to do this every weekend....
Showing posts with label coherence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coherence. Show all posts
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
I'm back...
[This is a looooong post! Feel free to skip bits]
So, as I said in my last post I've been really busy recently. I got back to the US on Monday evening and started lab work on Tuesday. My (super awesome!) best friend, who is also my roommate this summer, moved all my things into my room, but I still had to arrange/unpack everything when I got back.
The plane flight back to the US was kinda stressful - it was delayed by over an hour because of technical difficulty (not exactly a relaxing thing to hear if you already hate flying!) and pretty much every seat on it was taken, which also ups the stress of flying!
Lab
I started lab work on Tuesday, so didn't have a huge amount of time to relax. It was all going fine until my parents decided they didn't like me working on the project I was working on (and I agreed with them). I know that sounds totally ridiculous and like my parents are being way too interfering with my life, but the reason they stepped in is that my project had me working with lead oxide, which is pretty nasty stuff. Lead is a heavy metal which means that once it gets into your body it stays there and you can't (really) get it out. Excess heavy metals in the body have been linked to things like cancer and dementia, so it's sort of serious. Lead oxide is also worse for you than plain old lead, because lead oxide is a fine powder which "poofs" whenever you touch it or move it. [I was wearing a mask whenever I was using it, but of course none of that stuff is 100% effective]. I'm also especially worried because I like in an old English house, which means that the water in my house probably goes through lead pipes. As lead doesn't leave the body, it's entirely possible that I already have a higher lead concentration in my body than someone my age should have.
I talked to my supervisor about it and to say the least he wasn't overly pleased. To be honest I don't really blame him: he thinks its safe and the rest of the people in my lab all handle the stuff occasionally. I'm also the only undergraduate who has changed projects at all, and now I'm going to be changing my project twice. (He's also grading my thesis and is meant to be writing me a letter of recommendation for law school, so I don't really want to make him dislike me...).
Anyway, that whole thing was a bit tough to deal with - I felt caught between him and my parents. I am probably more health conscious than most people in my lab as well, so a lot of other people in my lab thought I was being ridiculous and paranoid. Regardless, the situation is hopefully somewhat resolved now. I'm going to be getting a new project on Monday and I'm just going to have to try really hard to impress my supervisor!
Roomates
My living arrangement for this summer is a three bedroom triple, which means that each of us has our own bedroom. I'm living with my best friend (fingers crossed that that doesn't mess up our friendship, I'm sure it won't) and another girl (Diza), who we're sort of friends with (we needed a third person to fill the triple). Anyway, this other girl is driving me nuts, and I've only lived with her for three days. She's incredibly needy and is an over protected only child. She will literally stand outside my locked bedroom door and talk at me. She insists on doing things like coming into my room and turning on my laptop so that I can hear a song she wants me to hear. She followed me into the bathroom yesterday so she could finish telling me about some inane thing. I don't want to be mean, and I do feel a little sympathetic (I think she's pretty lonely), but seriously! I need some personal space.
The other issue is that she doesn't get me. She's fairly different to me and has no sense of independence. She insists on coming to the gym with me (the gym is kinda my alone space) and she will talk and talk at me when I'm lifting proper weights (so I need to focus). She also refuses to push herself at all - she was lifting 5 lb weights, complaining that they were too light, but refusing to lift more in case she hurts herself. She also complains and complains and complains about how much she's hurting from the gym, which drives me nuts!
She's also working in a lab (not my lab, thank god! Lab is the only time she's not there chattering at me.) and everyone in her lab was sent an online quiz that was meant to determine how empathetic you are and how good you are with other people, reading other people's emotions even when they're hidden etc. She scored 16 or so, if you score below 20 that's a possible sign of autism (because you're that unaware about what other people are thinking/feeling). I scored 72ish (I'm a fairly empathetic person, even if it doesn't seem if from this rant), so clearly it's possible to do "well" on this thing.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, she's just driving me absolutely insane. I know it's not her fault, but she has zilch conception of public space and alone time.
The Boy
I miss him. A lot. It probably doesn't help my mood!
Food/Gym
My food has been okay, but not great. I need to go back to recording my food more. I have been doing okay at the whole high fiber options thing, but I still think I could push it further. Basically, my meals are good and generally very healthy but I eat too much crap and sugar between meals (marshmallows and chocolate), which is really bad (and I just measured my blood sugar - 144 - also really bad).
Tomorrow I am not going to eat chocolate, marshmallows or other candy.
In other food news its really tough to go shopping at school. There are no supermarkets near by. I'm going to try a grocery delivery service, and I've scheduled the delivery for Sunday, so fingers crossed for that!
With regards to exercise, I've been doing okay, but it's a real pain to have to go with this other girl all the time. I find it harder to exercise with her yapping in my ear. I did go swimming (alone) yesterday though, which felt fantastic. I haven't been swimming in ages (despite the fact that I'm meant to go to increase my oxygen transport ability - more on that at some other time).
My heart rate monitor also arrived! I've only used it once so far, but I got a really good workout with it. A few months ago I went to an exercise physiologist who did various tests on me and was able to determine my own max heart rate etc (and that my limitation is the rate at which I can transport oxygen/carbon dioxide from my lungs to my blood). Anyway, what he suggested (for me, this isn't universal) is to get my heart rate to 190+ for two minutes and then come down to 160ish for 2-3 minutes. I tried it on the rotex on Wednesday and it was really good!
I've also decided that I'm going to try to...swim twice a week, do gym-based cardio two or three times a week and lift weights twice a week (and have one rest day!).
Mental Health/Personal Development
I've gotten bad about doing my breathing every night, so I need to get back to doing that. HeartMath, the company I purchased it from, runs various webinars, so I've signed up for one of those on "Better Communication". I'm hoping it'll be interesting.
Resolutions
I'm doing okay with the resolutions. I've been fairly good at wearing sunscreen which is of course a good thing. I've gotten worse about doing my "old" things like taking vitamins and psyllium, so I need to get back to doing those kinds of things.
Tour Guiding
I have my first tour tomorrow! I'm not an official tour guide yet (the tour tomorrow is a practice tour to see if I'm up to scratch!). I'm a bit nervous about it, but fingers crossed! I'm going to spend part of tonight thinking about what I need/want to say!
Ahh! This was a realllly long post! Sorry about that. Just had a lot I needed to write about!
So, as I said in my last post I've been really busy recently. I got back to the US on Monday evening and started lab work on Tuesday. My (super awesome!) best friend, who is also my roommate this summer, moved all my things into my room, but I still had to arrange/unpack everything when I got back.
The plane flight back to the US was kinda stressful - it was delayed by over an hour because of technical difficulty (not exactly a relaxing thing to hear if you already hate flying!) and pretty much every seat on it was taken, which also ups the stress of flying!
Lab
I started lab work on Tuesday, so didn't have a huge amount of time to relax. It was all going fine until my parents decided they didn't like me working on the project I was working on (and I agreed with them). I know that sounds totally ridiculous and like my parents are being way too interfering with my life, but the reason they stepped in is that my project had me working with lead oxide, which is pretty nasty stuff. Lead is a heavy metal which means that once it gets into your body it stays there and you can't (really) get it out. Excess heavy metals in the body have been linked to things like cancer and dementia, so it's sort of serious. Lead oxide is also worse for you than plain old lead, because lead oxide is a fine powder which "poofs" whenever you touch it or move it. [I was wearing a mask whenever I was using it, but of course none of that stuff is 100% effective]. I'm also especially worried because I like in an old English house, which means that the water in my house probably goes through lead pipes. As lead doesn't leave the body, it's entirely possible that I already have a higher lead concentration in my body than someone my age should have.
I talked to my supervisor about it and to say the least he wasn't overly pleased. To be honest I don't really blame him: he thinks its safe and the rest of the people in my lab all handle the stuff occasionally. I'm also the only undergraduate who has changed projects at all, and now I'm going to be changing my project twice. (He's also grading my thesis and is meant to be writing me a letter of recommendation for law school, so I don't really want to make him dislike me...).
Anyway, that whole thing was a bit tough to deal with - I felt caught between him and my parents. I am probably more health conscious than most people in my lab as well, so a lot of other people in my lab thought I was being ridiculous and paranoid. Regardless, the situation is hopefully somewhat resolved now. I'm going to be getting a new project on Monday and I'm just going to have to try really hard to impress my supervisor!
Roomates
My living arrangement for this summer is a three bedroom triple, which means that each of us has our own bedroom. I'm living with my best friend (fingers crossed that that doesn't mess up our friendship, I'm sure it won't) and another girl (Diza), who we're sort of friends with (we needed a third person to fill the triple). Anyway, this other girl is driving me nuts, and I've only lived with her for three days. She's incredibly needy and is an over protected only child. She will literally stand outside my locked bedroom door and talk at me. She insists on doing things like coming into my room and turning on my laptop so that I can hear a song she wants me to hear. She followed me into the bathroom yesterday so she could finish telling me about some inane thing. I don't want to be mean, and I do feel a little sympathetic (I think she's pretty lonely), but seriously! I need some personal space.
The other issue is that she doesn't get me. She's fairly different to me and has no sense of independence. She insists on coming to the gym with me (the gym is kinda my alone space) and she will talk and talk at me when I'm lifting proper weights (so I need to focus). She also refuses to push herself at all - she was lifting 5 lb weights, complaining that they were too light, but refusing to lift more in case she hurts herself. She also complains and complains and complains about how much she's hurting from the gym, which drives me nuts!
She's also working in a lab (not my lab, thank god! Lab is the only time she's not there chattering at me.) and everyone in her lab was sent an online quiz that was meant to determine how empathetic you are and how good you are with other people, reading other people's emotions even when they're hidden etc. She scored 16 or so, if you score below 20 that's a possible sign of autism (because you're that unaware about what other people are thinking/feeling). I scored 72ish (I'm a fairly empathetic person, even if it doesn't seem if from this rant), so clearly it's possible to do "well" on this thing.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, she's just driving me absolutely insane. I know it's not her fault, but she has zilch conception of public space and alone time.
The Boy
I miss him. A lot. It probably doesn't help my mood!
Food/Gym
My food has been okay, but not great. I need to go back to recording my food more. I have been doing okay at the whole high fiber options thing, but I still think I could push it further. Basically, my meals are good and generally very healthy but I eat too much crap and sugar between meals (marshmallows and chocolate), which is really bad (and I just measured my blood sugar - 144 - also really bad).
Tomorrow I am not going to eat chocolate, marshmallows or other candy.
In other food news its really tough to go shopping at school. There are no supermarkets near by. I'm going to try a grocery delivery service, and I've scheduled the delivery for Sunday, so fingers crossed for that!
With regards to exercise, I've been doing okay, but it's a real pain to have to go with this other girl all the time. I find it harder to exercise with her yapping in my ear. I did go swimming (alone) yesterday though, which felt fantastic. I haven't been swimming in ages (despite the fact that I'm meant to go to increase my oxygen transport ability - more on that at some other time).
My heart rate monitor also arrived! I've only used it once so far, but I got a really good workout with it. A few months ago I went to an exercise physiologist who did various tests on me and was able to determine my own max heart rate etc (and that my limitation is the rate at which I can transport oxygen/carbon dioxide from my lungs to my blood). Anyway, what he suggested (for me, this isn't universal) is to get my heart rate to 190+ for two minutes and then come down to 160ish for 2-3 minutes. I tried it on the rotex on Wednesday and it was really good!
I've also decided that I'm going to try to...swim twice a week, do gym-based cardio two or three times a week and lift weights twice a week (and have one rest day!).
Mental Health/Personal Development
I've gotten bad about doing my breathing every night, so I need to get back to doing that. HeartMath, the company I purchased it from, runs various webinars, so I've signed up for one of those on "Better Communication". I'm hoping it'll be interesting.
Resolutions
I'm doing okay with the resolutions. I've been fairly good at wearing sunscreen which is of course a good thing. I've gotten worse about doing my "old" things like taking vitamins and psyllium, so I need to get back to doing those kinds of things.
Tour Guiding
I have my first tour tomorrow! I'm not an official tour guide yet (the tour tomorrow is a practice tour to see if I'm up to scratch!). I'm a bit nervous about it, but fingers crossed! I'm going to spend part of tonight thinking about what I need/want to say!
Ahh! This was a realllly long post! Sorry about that. Just had a lot I needed to write about!
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Coherence & Nuvaring Update
So, I realised that I keep talking about coherence, and "doing my coherence" and most people probably don't know what I actually mean by it.
In one of my last posts I talked about going to see a counselor and then going to see someone who specialized in biofeedback. During the biofeedback session I did various "stress tests" (recall a stressful incident, math etc) and saw how various physiological indicators changed (blood pressure, adrenaline, skin temperature etc). (Btw, my adrenaline was very high, all the time. Even when I was relaxing. And by "very high" I mean about 5 x what it's meant to be.)
Anyway, at the end of the session he suggested that I look into (and practice) "coherence", which is basically getting your breathing in sync with your heart rate. For me that means about 8-10 seconds per breath (in and out). I invested in a computer program which was pretty expensive, but very worth it. It has a sensor which I clip to my ear (the sensor measures the regularity of your heart rate) and a number of "games" to help you practice coherence (if you are "in coherence" you get more gold coins or the hot air balloon moves faster etc).
Eventually the goal is to be able to get into a state of coherence without the program. When you're "in coherence" you feel relaxed, less stressed, more clear headed etc, which are obviously good things! Anyway, I'll let you know how that all goes!
PS I'm loving the nuvaring so far - no side effects that I can tell at the moment! (Though, I'm not sure what my boyfriend will think of it, apparently some guys can feel it during certain activities. We don't engage in those activities when I have my period, which I still do, because he's too squeamish!)
EDIT: I've attached a picture of coherence/my heart rate. On the left it's much more jagged and less even than on the right (when I was incoherence). This is a screenshot from emWave Mac, and I'm sure it belongs to the people who made the program.
In one of my last posts I talked about going to see a counselor and then going to see someone who specialized in biofeedback. During the biofeedback session I did various "stress tests" (recall a stressful incident, math etc) and saw how various physiological indicators changed (blood pressure, adrenaline, skin temperature etc). (Btw, my adrenaline was very high, all the time. Even when I was relaxing. And by "very high" I mean about 5 x what it's meant to be.)
Anyway, at the end of the session he suggested that I look into (and practice) "coherence", which is basically getting your breathing in sync with your heart rate. For me that means about 8-10 seconds per breath (in and out). I invested in a computer program which was pretty expensive, but very worth it. It has a sensor which I clip to my ear (the sensor measures the regularity of your heart rate) and a number of "games" to help you practice coherence (if you are "in coherence" you get more gold coins or the hot air balloon moves faster etc).
Eventually the goal is to be able to get into a state of coherence without the program. When you're "in coherence" you feel relaxed, less stressed, more clear headed etc, which are obviously good things! Anyway, I'll let you know how that all goes!
PS I'm loving the nuvaring so far - no side effects that I can tell at the moment! (Though, I'm not sure what my boyfriend will think of it, apparently some guys can feel it during certain activities. We don't engage in those activities when I have my period, which I still do, because he's too squeamish!)
EDIT: I've attached a picture of coherence/my heart rate. On the left it's much more jagged and less even than on the right (when I was incoherence). This is a screenshot from emWave Mac, and I'm sure it belongs to the people who made the program.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Last Day of Class!
So, today was my last day of class for this year, which I have mixed feelings about. Like I said yesterday, I don't like change, and I don't like things ending, so this is tough from that point of view. I still have exams and papers for all my classes (lots of them!), so they're not totally done. I have really enjoyed my classes this semester, which is great, but it makes it harder when they (start to) end.
At the beginning of this school year (October), I saw a counselor a few times. My college provides counseling to students free of charge, so it seemed like a good time to try it. It's also easy because the health center is just a few minutes from my dorm. I'm not sure what it was about it, but I didn't really like it. I really thought it would be my kind of thing - I'm definitely the type of person who likes to talk out problems.
But...I'm not convinced that the person I was seeing was well matched to me. She specialized in chronic mental health problems, Asian/Asian American issues and eating disorders in minority populations. She was really nice and all, but it wasn't helping me work through my issues. Part of the issue is that I'm definitely someone who dwells on things. It wasn't her fault, but it meant that I'd have to go back and go over issues from the previous week. Anyway, I eventually stopped seeing her, which I think was a good decision. I did later see someone who specialized in biofeedback (which is how I got into coherence), and talked over some of my issues with him. He suggested that if something's upsetting me I give myself five minutes to think about it/dwell on it, and then try to move onto something else. Obviously it's not always that easy to just say "ok, this is really bothering me, but my five minutes are up", but it does get easier with practice!
Anyway, that was all a very long way of getting to the point, namely that if I start stressing about the end of classes again I'm going to give myself five minutes to think about it, and then try to move on to doing or thinking about something else! (If I remember) I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!
Does anyone have any other coping mechanisms for things like this?
At the beginning of this school year (October), I saw a counselor a few times. My college provides counseling to students free of charge, so it seemed like a good time to try it. It's also easy because the health center is just a few minutes from my dorm. I'm not sure what it was about it, but I didn't really like it. I really thought it would be my kind of thing - I'm definitely the type of person who likes to talk out problems.
But...I'm not convinced that the person I was seeing was well matched to me. She specialized in chronic mental health problems, Asian/Asian American issues and eating disorders in minority populations. She was really nice and all, but it wasn't helping me work through my issues. Part of the issue is that I'm definitely someone who dwells on things. It wasn't her fault, but it meant that I'd have to go back and go over issues from the previous week. Anyway, I eventually stopped seeing her, which I think was a good decision. I did later see someone who specialized in biofeedback (which is how I got into coherence), and talked over some of my issues with him. He suggested that if something's upsetting me I give myself five minutes to think about it/dwell on it, and then try to move onto something else. Obviously it's not always that easy to just say "ok, this is really bothering me, but my five minutes are up", but it does get easier with practice!
Anyway, that was all a very long way of getting to the point, namely that if I start stressing about the end of classes again I'm going to give myself five minutes to think about it, and then try to move on to doing or thinking about something else! (If I remember) I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!
Does anyone have any other coping mechanisms for things like this?
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Fears
So, like I said in one of my earlier posts, I'm (unfortunately) a very anxious person. (I have a feeling that this is going to turn into a "theme" post, as opposed to a diary type one.)
I'm fearful of a lot of things - I hate flying, I don't like change, I worry about things happening to people I love and sometimes I worry about totally irrational things. Anyway, I booked a flight home today, for the summer, and it made me anxious to even book the flight. For some reason I always have unhelpful thoughts about panes crashing/being attacked. I also hate making decisions, and with this kind of decision it seems like an even bigger deal, because what if I make the wrong decision and I'm on the plane where something does go wrong? I know its a ridiculous thing to worry about - planes are, after all, one of the safest forms of transport, but still...
Anyway, I am trying to do things to help me overcome my anxiety - little changes to my daily routine, as well as doing my coherence practice daily/as often as possible. I'm also reading through some ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) books, which are great. I'm not one of those people who can just stop thinking about things that are bothering me, and ACT gives me a way to deal with concerns and problems in my head and recognize them for what they are - random thoughts in my head that may or may not actually bear any resemblance to what's going on in reality.
Anyway, it's 2:30 in the morning now, so probably bed time for me!
I'm fearful of a lot of things - I hate flying, I don't like change, I worry about things happening to people I love and sometimes I worry about totally irrational things. Anyway, I booked a flight home today, for the summer, and it made me anxious to even book the flight. For some reason I always have unhelpful thoughts about panes crashing/being attacked. I also hate making decisions, and with this kind of decision it seems like an even bigger deal, because what if I make the wrong decision and I'm on the plane where something does go wrong? I know its a ridiculous thing to worry about - planes are, after all, one of the safest forms of transport, but still...
Anyway, I am trying to do things to help me overcome my anxiety - little changes to my daily routine, as well as doing my coherence practice daily/as often as possible. I'm also reading through some ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) books, which are great. I'm not one of those people who can just stop thinking about things that are bothering me, and ACT gives me a way to deal with concerns and problems in my head and recognize them for what they are - random thoughts in my head that may or may not actually bear any resemblance to what's going on in reality.
Anyway, it's 2:30 in the morning now, so probably bed time for me!
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
First Ever Post!
I'm not really sure what to write here!
I guess I should start with why I started a blog, and a little about me...
I'm 20, almost 21, and a student at one of the top US universities. I'm originally from the UK, and my family still lives there. I'm pretty close to them. I'm a junior in college, majoring in science, so I end up spending a lot of time in lab (which, no doubt, will come up again and again). I have a boyfriend (of two years) who I adore, and a few close girl friends. Unfortunately, when N & I started dating we lost a few mutual friends through jealousy.
My best friend in the UK started keeping a diary as her new years resolution this year, and has been trying to convince me to do the same, so I guess this blog is partly an attempt at that. I've had some "issues" of the last few years, struggling from occasional "depression" (never officially diagnosed) and also moderately severe anxiety. I've tried going to therapists, which hasn't really helped, as they tend to encourage me to dwell on things, which I already do enough of on my own! To that end, I've started trying to practice mindfulness and coherence, and I try to practice each night. I've also tried to tackle my issues head on, which has helped (e.g. I felt I was struggling academically, so went to go talk to professors and our academic support people who are fantastic, so I feel a lot better about all that now!)
I also feel like I have some kind of food issue. I tend to binge eat and eat because I'm bored. I then feel incredibly guilty. My eating habits go in cycles where I'll eat obsessively well for a bit (a week or so) and then eat terribly for a week etc. I'd like to try to sort that out! (It is difficult at school though, given that I have a dining hall meal plan).
Anyway, that's all from me! Off to bed now, as I have to get up early (8:30, early for me!) to go into lab!
I guess I should start with why I started a blog, and a little about me...
I'm 20, almost 21, and a student at one of the top US universities. I'm originally from the UK, and my family still lives there. I'm pretty close to them. I'm a junior in college, majoring in science, so I end up spending a lot of time in lab (which, no doubt, will come up again and again). I have a boyfriend (of two years) who I adore, and a few close girl friends. Unfortunately, when N & I started dating we lost a few mutual friends through jealousy.
My best friend in the UK started keeping a diary as her new years resolution this year, and has been trying to convince me to do the same, so I guess this blog is partly an attempt at that. I've had some "issues" of the last few years, struggling from occasional "depression" (never officially diagnosed) and also moderately severe anxiety. I've tried going to therapists, which hasn't really helped, as they tend to encourage me to dwell on things, which I already do enough of on my own! To that end, I've started trying to practice mindfulness and coherence, and I try to practice each night. I've also tried to tackle my issues head on, which has helped (e.g. I felt I was struggling academically, so went to go talk to professors and our academic support people who are fantastic, so I feel a lot better about all that now!)
I also feel like I have some kind of food issue. I tend to binge eat and eat because I'm bored. I then feel incredibly guilty. My eating habits go in cycles where I'll eat obsessively well for a bit (a week or so) and then eat terribly for a week etc. I'd like to try to sort that out! (It is difficult at school though, given that I have a dining hall meal plan).
Anyway, that's all from me! Off to bed now, as I have to get up early (8:30, early for me!) to go into lab!
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