the LIGHT BULB moment

It's a long weekend this weekend in Melbourne and I am very excited. I woke up this morning and thought "WOW! I have another sleep in tomorrow morning!" Considering the week I have had this couldn't come at a better time.

For the last 4 weeks I have had a headache everyday. Some days a mild well-mannered headache and other days they have been ridiculous - bordering on migraine territory. As a migraine suffer I analyse the ache of the head carefully. Most of the time I know what to do but this time I was starting to get worried as I was ensuring that I was getting enough sleep, good nutrition etc. but then to counteract that I was craving sugars and biscuits and I was waking between 3 and 5am lots.

Eureka! On Friday at work we had a guest speaker in (on our student free day) and she talked about exhaustion, diet, Adrenalin etc and how it affects the teaching profession ALOT!

After feeling guilty about having to pull out of a couple of camps I was meant to be going on, I suddenly felt almost liberated. I felt justified that what I had been experiencing wasn't just a figment of my imagination and did not show that I was unprofessional. These were both weighing heavily on my mind as I felt that I was losing touch and couldn't do it all. For many people this sounds strange but for me, and many teachers I have discovered, it is not unusual to have feelings of doubt.

I have started working on the suggestions for improving my lifestyle. I am endeavouring to only drink one cup of coffee per day, have a small amount of protein at each meal, cut down the amount of carbohydrates that I eat during the day and looking for the healthy work/life balance. The biggest thing that I have to work on (and I think it will take some time) is learning to say "no" and mean it.

Also I discovered during this week is that running is not the thing for my health and well being.
Throws my hips out of alignment which then plays havoc with my spine which then sends interesting messages to the brain which replies with a dull ache or two. Combine this with the stress I felt under at work and you have a great recipe for bad sickness......thank you to the people who organised the speaker and allowed me to have a few LIGHT BULB moments.