Reworking Your Environment

I’ve been trudging through a rut the past few days. Climbing out of it today and yesterday, but I’m continually stumped as to how I fall into the same rut. Maybe that’s part of the problem — I think of each rut as the same, when they’re all unique. It’s much easier for the brain to categorize all “ruts” as being the same, because the brain loves patterns. Unique instances can stand on their own, but it takes much less processing power to find a category and stick something into that category for faster predictions in the future.

This rut started with me not going outside for a day. Not that I didn’t go workout or take a walk. I never even crossed the threshold of my apartment door to the outside world. In our current environment, I should get a medal for being a social distancing hero, right? Wrong.

I need to get outside. It is one of my daily negotiables. Wait, shouldn’t that be non-negotiables? I used to have those, but after listening to the excellent “Ologies” podcast by Alie Ward on the subject of procrastination, I now aim for a 70-80% success rate in my day-to-day activities. It’s much more realistic for me to complete about three out of five of my daily negotiables, which are:

• Exercise

• Meditate

• Read

• Write

• Get Outside

Normally, missing one of my daily negotiables would be fine, so long as I completed at least three others. As you may have guessed, I did not, and I began walking the spiraling staircase down into a depressed rut of shame and self-loathing.

Fortunately, I have an excellent support system and my friends and family checked in on me via calls and texts. I visited my parents (the only people I’ve been allowed to see face-to-face during this quarantine), played with their dogs, and did some reading in the sun. Then I left to rework my bedroom.

The biggest problem with ruts is that they can be further cued by your environment. And the biggest problem with our environments is that we are all, currently, stuck in the same ones. Day after day. Minute after minute. There may be no escape from where we are safely containing ourselves, but we can adjust our environment to provide our brains with some novel stimulation.

Yesterday, I spent two hours moving my bedroom furniture around. Finding a new place for my dresser, my bed, bed-side tables, etc. During this process, I vacuumed detritus that had hidden itself behind my furniture, which led to a feeling of pristine cleanliness once I finished. Then I opened my bedroom blackout-curtains and allowed some fresh sunlight into the space. You know that feeling when you make your bed? That cozy, satisfied feeling? I felt that, but for the whole room!

While I reworked my sleeping space, I felt motivated to do some other ADL’s (activities of daily living), which I had been slacking. I shaved, organized my medications for the week, did load after load of laundry, and cleaned my kitchen. One action spurred more actions, and all of a sudden, I had a clean apartment again and a newish space in which to sleep.

This morning was the first in the last several in which I woke completely rested and optimistic about the day. While I lived in a rut for about three days, I was able to climb out of it. First through my support network, second through organizing my living space, and third by getting some much-needed sleep.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going out for a walk.