Back to Basics

By Darcy Thiel

When I lecture on death/dying, I often talk about how even with all our modern marvels of medicine, human life always comes back to two basic needs- eating and sleeping. When a person is undergoing treatment, neither eating or sleeping is easy to come by. Palliative/comfort care often restores exactly that- the ability to eat and sleep more easily. That is why research shows that people often live longer with palliative care than they do with curative care (chemo, radiation, etc.).

I’ve been thinking about how recently my eating and sleeping have been not been doing so well. Honestly, not eating well has been a lifelong problem. It has been the exception when I have been able to get a handle on eating properly. I’ve actually been successful, but only for brief periods of time. Every day I wake up and attempt to do so again, but usually by 2:00 pm I’ve sunk again. I have all the education I need, I just don’t have the motivation or willpower to follow through. Or something.

I tried to think of a baby step I could take and I came up with setting up a task in my calendar that comes with an alarm. At 8 am every day, I want to have a protein shake. That will start my day correctly and maybe if it is an actual task that needs to be checked off, I can put my OCD to good use. If I can get that to be habitual, my next goal will be to set a reminder up at 9 pm that says, “No more eating” and eventually decrease the time until 7 pm.

Sleeping is another lifelong battle. I’ve done sleep tests at different ages. I’ve tried all the different medicines there are. But lately, I’ve just gotten in a bad habit of watching Netflix until 1 in the morning. Then I don’t want to (or can’t sometimes) get up when I used to. After waking my son Frankie for school, I go back to sleep. By mid-afternoon I need a nap in order to get through my activities. Vicious cycle. Once I nap, then I’m up at night again.

My baby step was again to add a daily task set up with an alarm. My goal for the first few days is to go to bed at 11 pm, WITHOUT Netflix or anything else. Even if I just lay there, it will help break the habit. Then I can lower the time by 30 minutes until I get to bed at a more decent time for me.

So simple, but sometimes I just have to hit myself over the head. Your eating and sleeping is off, Darcy so it is effecting everything else. You need to fix it.

Tiny, elementary steps that I feel like I shouldn’t need to still be making at 50 years old, but yet here I am. Small, incremental steps are the only way that I know of though, to make changes that won’t make me want to jump off a cliff.

Sigh.