I have very recently gotten myself into jogging. Its something that I have never wanted or even thought of doing if i'm completely honest. Im not a very sporty girl, I am the average joe who smacks the alarm at 6.45am in the morning to stay in bed that extra hour (or 2) longer. I am not a morning person - far from it.
Im pretty lucky in that I am a self employed graphic designer and I work from home, so I do not have to rush to commute to my job in the mornings. My typical days since loosing my job (the company moved to another location) & moving to London usually start with my husband kissing me goodbye as he went off to work and I crawl out of bed at a certain part of the day to see what work needed finishing. On good days I am sat at my work desk by 10am and tackling my design jobs, replying to emails and contacting clients about future projects.
However as I have found freelancing can also be lonely, team that with anxiety and depression and you get bad days. When I have no work on or even when I have very low mood days I can actually struggle to get myself up before 1pm. This does have a big impact on my work and can cause more self loathing and upset. Depression makes me not want to do anything and it results in me sleeping my days away - literally.
I was continually going in these vicious cycles.
With the help of CBT I am slowly on the mend. This second year has been less challenging and although it has not been as hard or daunting - Im getting very use to London now, however I do still struggle with bad & low days and Im getting tired of being on this rollercoaster. So as I was saying in this previous blog post - its time to break the bad habits. In order to overcome anxiety and depression, you have to do.
Thats where the jogging comes in. My husband is fairly active, he loves his job and he also cycles to work up to 4 times a week. A huge 50 minute bike ride from our tiny house in Hither green all the way to shoreditch. He is also the genius behind me jogging. He suggesting one day I come jogging with him in the mornings. At first I laughed it off, no way was I getting up at 7am to go jogging! But more recently when another wave of depression hit it came hard and I couldn't keep doing this to myself. Thats when I decided I needed to make changes for me and my husband.
It works and it makes your feel great.
Its really hard work! Im only managing a mile at the moment which is around 10 minutes and i won't lie it hasn't been consistent each morning. Yesterday I just could not find the will to get out of bed - my biggest challenge. Today I managed to get myself to go, however I then got back into bed and fell asleep for another 3 hours. I lost the feel good feeling and just felt bad for the rest of the day. So learning from this my aim for the rest of this week is too get up and go and not allow myself to climb back into bed! Small steps everyday.
