usually i could get out of my bed and reach 7k steps a day. but there's some times that i just don't wanna do anything but lay on my bed. i feel guilty but decide to do nothing about it.
do u guys have similar experience?
I default to a little nod but some people give a full 'morning!' and honestly it makes my day!
hit me up!
every day after lunch my brain just leaves the building. tbh i'm in meetings nodding at stuff i could not repeat back to you if my life depended on it. by 3 i'm just rereading the same email and refilling my water bottle for something to do.
for years my fix was a second coffee, until our machine broke for two weeks in june and i started stepping outside for 15 min just to stay awake. weirdly that worked better than the coffee ever did, and now my friends have me in some step competition on pacer so i guess it stuck. still grab the coffee when it rains though.
if there's any alternative to walking or coffee i'd really appreciate 😭
what do you guys actually do about the afternoon crash? or is everyone just quietly useless from 2-4 and we don't talk about it lol.
next goal: 8k steps everyday!!
alright sharing this because i spent actual years trying to fix my sleep from the wrong end.
i did everything the sleep hygiene people tell you. blackout curtains, no screens after 10, magnesium, boring tea, one of those sunrise alarm clocks that cost way too much. i'd lie there doing breathing exercises, absolutely furious, checking if the breathing exercises were working yet. which is not really the vibe they're going for i think.
the thing that actually fixed it had nothing to do with my bedroom. i just started walking after dinner. like 30-40 minutes, nothing serious. i didn't even do it for sleep, i started because a few friends pulled me into a step challenge on pacer and i was losing badly and got petty about it. checking that leaderboard after dinner and seeing myself in last place did more for my daily movement than years of "i should exercise more" ever did lol.
but like two weeks in i noticed i was falling asleep in ten minutes instead of lying there for an hour running tomorrow's to-do list on loop. turns out if you give your body an actual reason to be tired, it cooperates. who knew. all those years buying sleep gadgets when the answer was "go outside, you gremlin."
the walk basically became a hard line between the day and the evening. work stress stays on the walk, i come back, pacer says i hit my number, and my brain clocks out for the day instead of doing overtime in bed. the dumb little streak is honestly half the reason i haven't skipped a night in two months.
if your sleep is a mess and you've already thrown money at every gadget, try the dumb free option first. WALK AFTER DINNER FOR TWO WEEKS AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!!
alright i wanna share my story below. hope it could help some of u.
i'm someone whose brain just does not stop. spiraling, replaying conversations from 10 years ago, planning arguments that'll never actually happen, drafting the perfect comeback to something nobody even said to me. for years i figured that was just my default setting and i had to live with the noise.
i tried all the fixes. meditation apps, journaling, the whole "just sit with your thoughts" thing. and every single time i'd last about four minutes before my brain went "ok but did you lock the door" and i'd give up feeling like i failed at relaxing, which is really kinda stupid.
turns out the thing that actually works for me is embarrassingly simple. i just walk. something about physically moving drags the volume down to a level i can actually think around. half the time i don't even put anything in my ears, no podcast, no music, i just go and let my head sort itself out at walking speed instead of panic speed.
the only reason i do it consistently is i invited a few friends into a little step challenge on pacer, which weirdly keeps me honest on the days i'd 100% talk myself out of it. but the challenge is just the excuse. the walk is the actual medicine. worst mood i've been in this year and 30 minutes outside still took the edge off.
if you're a fellow overthinker who's bounced off every meditation app, genuinely just try walking with no goal and nothing playing! IT COULD REALLY HELP!!
ps. i had almost 6k steps yesterday hopefully i will hit 10k today!
Took me about an hour and a half of actual walking, spread out over the day. That's roughly 7.5 km / 4.7 miles at a pretty lazy pace. I tracked it for 30 days.
Rough split on a normal day:
The weird part is the days I missed were never the busy ones. It was rainy days, and WFH days where I just never left the house.
Curious how long 10k takes everyone else. And what usually kills your day, weather, WFH, or just plain forgetting?
nothing groundbreaking but in case it helps someone. what i did was i stopped trying to chase the number and instead gamified the whole thing.
so for context, i used to treat walking 10k daily / exercise like a torture and i had to tick off every day, and i never stuck with it for more than a week. then i started noticing how many step counter apps have step challenges and little games built in now. leaderboards, monthly goals, badges, stuffs like that. and honestly that changed everything for me, it turned a chore into something i actually wanted to open the app for.
that competitive side lowkey became the biggest thing, cuz once i was in a challenge it felt like i was playing against real people instead of just grinding steps alone. ive been using pacer for it (its free, tracks off just your phone so no watch needed, and it has the whole challenge & medal system). me n my friends are genuinely going at it day by day now, talking a lil trash, chasing each other on the board, comparing weekly totals.
the unexpected part is walking stopped feeling like torture and kinda became a way me n my long distance friends keep in touch. we don't live in the same city anymore but we still check each others steps and hype each other up, it lowkey keeps us close.
anyway whats keeping the rest of you going? always looking for new tricks to make exercise/burning calories more fun!