In order to produce my best work, self-care needs to come first.  As a freshman in college, adjusting to a new way of living can become difficult.  On average, I might be getting around 5 hours of sleep each night and eating around 3 pints of ice cream a week.  Neither of these is healthy habits. I also have a tendency to leave things to the last minute, which is half of the reason my average bedtime is 3 am.  In order to try and better myself, I set three goals to try to meet for the next week.

Goals:

• Create and look at a calendar every day

• Try to sleep at least 7 hours

• Only have one pint of ice cream per week

Journal:

Day 1:

• 6 hours of sleep

• Checked calendar

• No ice cream

Day 2:

• 5 hours of sleep

• Checked calendar

• Does a milkshake count?

Day 3:

• 4 hours of sleep

• Checked calendar

• No ice cream

Day 4:

• 6 hours of sleep

• Checked calendar

• No ice cream

Day 5:

• 7 hours of sleep

• Checked calendar

• I had a froyo popsicle (only 100 cal no way that counts)

Day 6:

• 7 hours of sleep

• Checked calendar

• I had another froyo popsicle…

Day 7:

• 6 hours of sleep

• Checked calendar

• I had a pint, but it was healthy ice cream, not real ice cream (360 cal for the pint)

Conclusion:

I definitely feel that I succeeded the most in my calendaring events and following through with checking it every morning.  Overall, I saw an improvement in my organizational skills and the ability to get work done with less stress. Although, on the goal of sleep, I really missed the mark.  I only achieved seven hours of sleep two out of the seven days in the week. I think that part of the reason for this is because I have been in the habit of doing this for so long, it is hard for my body to adjust going to be earlier.  On the nights I did get seven hours, I found myself naturally waking up very early before I needed to, for no reason. As for the ice cream, the only real ice cream I had was a milkshake, so technically I beat my goal since I didn’t even eat a pint.  I tried some “healthy” alternatives to ice cream, but I do NOT recommend it. It’s just not satisfying. Go for the real pint.