Paying attention to you health, eating and sleeping and a note of caution:
These are three areas many people struggle with early in their journey back to functionality and living on their own. It’s more inertia stuff, things we don’t have the energy to do and in some cases often feel too sick to do. In the case of sleep, we often just can’t seem to slow our thoughts down enough to relax and fall asleep or we wake and start “mind-spinning” during the night and then can’t get back to sleep.
There are many things we can try to help us sleep; reading, not reading, watching TV and stuff online or not watching, journaling, listening to soothing music, scented candles, herbal teas, meditation and of course there are a large number of OTC sleep aids. I think everyone needs find their own solutions to the sleep issue. Almost everyone I’ve spoken to has told me of something different they have tried or that has worked for them.
My personal solution was CBD’s, I took 5mg of CBD before getting into bed each night and it helped me fall asleep and more importantly for me, it helped me get back to sleep if I woke during the night. In a way, I was able to re-teach myself how to fall and remain asleep with this aid and after a year or so, I was able to slowly stop taking it entirely and now I have almost no trouble falling or remaining asleep. This is just what worked for me. I don’t suggest it will work for everyone and as in all things, you need to find what works for you, keeping in mind the cautions at the end of this post.
Feeding yourself well is a sort of obvious one, we need good food to stay healthy and in our grief and the accompanying feelings of depression, sickness and inertia we may experience, not eating can quickly take its toll on our physical health. Eating anything is often difficult in the early days and eating well and perhaps cooking at all are sometimes impossible. But eating mostly junk food or not eating at all or not eating enough robs us of health and stamina to do our tasks, stand under the onslaught of the grief waves and keeps us from moving forward in our journey toward hope and healing. To me, its an “inertia thing” and you just have to find a way to do it!
Our emotional health is compromised by our grief anyway. If you feel you need to use drugs, medications or alcohol to help you dull down the pain and loneliness or to help you fall asleep or remain asleep, it’s probably ok to cautiously do so in moderation. It is very important that you make sure that you remain in control of your usage. It is way too easy to become dependent on drugs or alcohol during periods of emotional turmoil and while they may sometimes be used to advantage and to “take the edge off” it is very important that we not let them take over our lives and make us even more unable to function or move forward in our lives. I believe it’s important to consult with a medical professional about any perception drugs we may want to use and to very seriously plan and limit their usage in our lives. They and certainly recreational drugs and alcohol too are a potential trap that our pain and sadness can let us grab hold of and then lose control of before we know it.
