I’ve previously posted about changing up routines to avoid boredom, and how great it felt to get back to routine after a wonderfully lazy vacation. Today I want to talk about routine again, and this time it’s from the perspective of getting back to routine after being ill and (or) injured.
I was recently diagnosed with another avulsion fracture, this time on my right foot. (Now I have matching fractures; one on each foot! Am I super talented or what?) I’ve been oh-so-slowly getting back to regular activity. I took about a week away from my part-time job at a greenhouse and sat around doing not very much. (I did get a lot of reading and cross-stitching done!) I limited my hours when I did go back to work. I followed the doctor’s instructions and things are slowly returning to whatever it is that passes for normal in my life. (I have hopes that within a week or two I will need neither a walking boot nor a brace on that foot!) At the same time, I had my second round of a troublesome intestinal bug. It was a rough month!
Needless to say, for a while I lost track of my routines.
I really love my mornings. I wake up, meditate, journal, and exercise. At least that’s what I usually do when I’m not ill or injured. Of course, rest is one of the most important factors in healing, and I needed lots of it. My mornings were not routine for a while. I finally got back my meditation & journal routine. I started back with limited exercise that I could do while wearing the walking boot. Then I moved from wearing the boot to the brace. Then I moved from the brace to doing my exercises barefoot and I did a little dance, but not enough to aggravate the foot. Then I started adding reps to the exercises and gradually adding back more and more of the exercises I like doing in the morning. This morning, even though it had been almost a week since my last round of deliberate morning exercise, I repeated last week’s success and added a little more.
I felt fantastic!!! I felt as if the patience I’d tried to apply to the healing process was working. And since it’s working, I’ll keep doing it. And as I keep being patient and keep adding things back slowly, I’ll get healthier and stronger again.
I still feel as though occasionally changing routine up is useful, particularly to avoid getting bored, however, getting back to what I enjoy in my morning routines? It’s pretty awesome.
What healthy routines make you happy?
Cheers! Here’s to your health!