It’s September and that means one thing – CMT Awareness Month. During the month of September I will be using my blog to play a part in raising Awareness with an “alphabet challenge” – blogging a letter / key word almost every day. Today is brought to you by the letter E. I hope my month of blogging will help you to learn more about CMT – the most common but least well known hereditary nerve disorder. And I hope this will also help to raise funds for the Charcot Marie Tooth Association to support its efforts to find a treatment for CMT. You can join me in learning more about CMT by clicking onto www.cmtausa.org and of course a donation would be wonderful too!
Last night I decided to cancel all plans and instead opted for a date with my pillow.
At the end of each triathlon season I tend to go through a period of extreme tiredness. It is like winding down and knowing that I have nothing on the horizon causes me to get REALLY REALLY tired. I am hoping this year that I avoid a trap I often fall into – the cold / sore throat / flu spiral. So I decided with the tiredness that I am carrying to just surrender to it, and opt for an early night.
One of the things I have become more attune to since taking up sport and exercise as a way to manage my health is that I can get really tired. They say that low energy comes hand in hand with a CMT diagnosis – but I am never one to blame absolutely everything on my medical conditions. Rather, I look for solutions and for me that means paying a lot of attention to getting enough sleep – and to do what I can to make this sleep high quality. I am a MUCH HAPPIER person when I get this right – and I feel much better both physically and at work.
It is tough, especially the high quality part of it. With a not-so-little puppy who likes to jump on the bed at about 4am just to check that we are still there and breathing, I often have disrupted sleep.
Felix likes to jump on the bed to check on us. Adorable little scamp!
Felix-disrupted sleep means I pay extra attention to the time that I head up to bed. This is similar to the advice that Ariana Huffington shares in her book “Thrive” (which I am about halfway through reading at the moment).
Huffington’s book can be found on Amazon
Huffington recounts how she did a challenge with her friends to get enough sleep every night (they had been existing on about 4 or 5 hours a night). She said that it worked for them by treating their sleep like an important meeting, putting it in their calendars, and planning their time to make sure they hit the appointment with their pillows ON TIME. She also recounts how turning the functional nature of sleep into a super pleasant ritual made it an appointment that she wanted to keep and not miss.
I suspect it will be another week or so until I feel back into a good place with my energy levels. I’m trying to make sure I have a quiet September, planning to go out maybe only one a week at the moment. A bit boring in the short run, but so much better for my well being in the long run!
It’s CMT Awareness Month. Today’s post was brought to you by the letter “E” – Energy. You can learn more about CMT and donate to support the search for a treatment for this at present incurable progressive degenerative nerve disease at www.cmtausa.org. Thank you.