BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 I could have sworn I woke up at 7 but it's 5. I actually got 6 straight hours though which hasn't happened. Usually I sleep from 11 to 2 and try to sleep but can't. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 5 Author Share Posted January 5 I actually enjoy waking up this early. Half my work day is over, I do yoga in the mornings, less tired at lunch, and I'm getting more energy after work. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 6 Author Share Posted January 6 I went to bed at 930 being naturally tired and woke up at 4 without an alarm clock. It's the most sleep I've gotten in one sitting in weeks I feel. I relaxed til 5 and got my day started again. I'm feeling better overall about being an early bird out of nowhere. I also resolved a major family issue that was causing me a great deal of stress. I confronted both parents and defended myself and resolved the issue. I think it's important to always defend yourself and understand the situation from both sides of the spectrum. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 9 Author Share Posted January 9 Today I'm 115 weeks free from gaming and 117 weeks free from social media. I've been waking up early every day this week and feel so much better. I'm finally getting 6-7 hours of consecutive sleep each night. I'm dominating at work and I'm doing my hobbies etc. I feel a lot better. I finished a difficult project this week at work and I took some time to just randomly play the drums because I like the noise. I wasn't trying to play a certain song or anything. It was fun. I've also been doing some yoga in the mornings and watching my tv shows at night. I've simplified life a bit and feel better. Also did some virtual chats with friends. I wanted to talk about what happened in Washington this week, but I want to uphold the rules Cam set forth on this website and not discuss politics. I just hope everyone is safe and doing what they can to maintain mental sanity during this time. Having that drama on top of the coronavirus stress is not very good for our health. Hopefully positivity will come soon. I have strong opinions about it, but once again will not discuss as per Cam. I also don't want anyone talking about it on my forum. Thank you. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mohammad 262 Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 1 hour ago, BooksandTrees said: Today I'm 115 weeks free from gaming and 117 weeks free from social media. I've been waking up early every day this week and feel so much better. I'm finally getting 6-7 hours of consecutive sleep each night. I'm dominating at work and I'm doing my hobbies etc. I feel a lot better. I finished a difficult project this week at work and I took some time to just randomly play the drums because I like the noise. I wasn't trying to play a certain song or anything. It was fun. I've also been doing some yoga in the mornings and watching my tv shows at night. I've simplified life a bit and feel better. Also did some virtual chats with friends. I wanted to talk about what happened in Washington this week, but I want to uphold the rules Cam set forth on this website and not discuss politics. I just hope everyone is safe and doing what they can to maintain mental sanity during this time. Having that drama on top of the coronavirus stress is not very good for our health. Hopefully positivity will come soon. I have strong opinions about it, but once again will not discuss as per Cam. I also don't want anyone talking about it on my forum. Thank you. Congratulation on 115 weeks! That is so amazing. how does it feel to be free of gaming for this long? I mean, isn't there any temptation? Is relapsing something of the past for you? I am not sure how many times you have relapse coming this far! I am asking this question because, as you know, I am having difficulty sticking to my detox for too long. After a few months, I feel good enough to get back to gaming and that's when the dissatisfaction starts to kick in and I start a new detox. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 9 Author Share Posted January 9 27 minutes ago, Mohammad said: Congratulation on 115 weeks! That is so amazing. how does it feel to be free of gaming for this long? I mean, isn't there any temptation? Is relapsing something of the past for you? I am not sure how many times you have relapse coming this far! I am asking this question because, as you know, I am having difficulty sticking to my detox for too long. After a few months, I feel good enough to get back to gaming and that's when the dissatisfaction starts to kick in and I start a new detox. I tried quitting ever since 2008 and couldn't do it. It took until 2018. That's a long time. I get urges sometimes but I just change the conversation, calm down and realize the day will end and tomorrow is a new day, and try to force myself into a different mindset. Enough pain is enough. 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mohammad 262 Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 2 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: I tried quitting ever since 2008 and couldn't do it. It took until 2018. That's a long time. I get urges sometimes but I just change the conversation, calm down and realize the day will end and tomorrow is a new day, and try to force myself into a different mindset. Enough pain is enough. Wow! it took 10 years for you to get here. That's right. I have been trying only for two years. I've got to try again. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 9 Author Share Posted January 9 3 minutes ago, Mohammad said: Wow! it took 10 years for you to get here. That's right. I have been trying only for two years. I've got to try again. Take your time and have some compassion for yourself. It takes everyone a different amount of time. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Ikar 1593 Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 54 minutes ago, Mohammad said: Wow! it took 10 years for you to get here. That's right. I have been trying only for two years. I've got to try again. I agree with @BooksandTrees. I don't have a record of how many times and when I tried to "curb" gaming by an hour or two to get some exercise or studying done, but it eventually came to the point where I had enough pain and quit cold turkey. I had to take responsibility for my life and I wanted to explore in more depth the things in life I got a glimpse of while still gaming. The progress of quitting is more continual than most people think. Maybe you cut your gaming time in half the last year. That's fair progress! Compare yourself to who you were before, not someone else. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 11 Author Share Posted January 11 I ate a lot of ice cream today and feel terrible. I don't know why I did it. I can't even work. So stupid. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 12 Author Share Posted January 12 I'm feeling a little better. I need to be better tomorrow and make up for lost productivity. It's a big week and I need to deliver. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Amphibian220 339 Posted January 13 Share Posted January 13 (edited) @BooksandTreesI was thinking about breaking eating discipline when I had this idea. What about US army rationing SOP? That measurement is designed to keep soldiers fit, without excess fat or sugar in their diet and sufficient amounts of carbohydrates, protein etc. what about closely monitoring food intake in accordance with that? I have broken my food discipline recently. I’ll try to see if I can set these limits up to prevent overeating. The upside is that you know you have eaten the right amount and there is no way to get confused with this. Edited January 13 by Amphibian220 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 13 Author Share Posted January 13 44 minutes ago, Amphibian220 said: @BooksandTreesI was thinking about breaking eating discipline when I had this idea. What about US army rationing SOP? That measurement is designed to keep soldiers fit, without excess fat or sugar in their diet and sufficient amounts of carbohydrates, protein etc. what about closely monitoring food intake in accordance with that? I have broken my food discipline recently. I’ll try to see if I can set these limits up to prevent overeating. The upside is that you know you have eaten the right amount and there is no way to get confused with this. I just started tracking calories again like I did last year and threw away my junk food. Also more water. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Bird By Bird 160 Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 On 1/13/2021 at 2:37 PM, Amphibian220 said: US army rationing That sounds like a fun and interesting experiment to try @Amphibian220. While more expensive than normal food - I think the additives they put in MREs to survive hostile conditions and keep soldiers in fighting shape may show improvement in your life. During your research, you might hear about stories like the Vomelet but don't be fooled because its actually super tasty and given an ironic name as a joke. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 17 Author Share Posted January 17 Today I'm 116 weeks free from gaming and 118 weeks free from social media. Well, technically yesterday, but I was busy yesterday lol. I've been working a lot on a difficult project at work that stressed me out but I've been making sure to charge overtime and dealing with it. I get annoyed with a few things going on but I'm just going to roll with it. Life is too short to beat myself up over worrying about little things out of my control. I was thrown into a dumb situation and I'm just gonna move on. I don't like poor communication. I don't like how things go from positive and negative so fast. I keep getting mixed signals from whether I've done good or bad and I strongly dislike feeling like I'm in an indecisive position. We'll see what happens. Otherwise I'm looking to just relax today and enjoy free time for once. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 My stomach is bothering me a lot tonight. I ate like shit all weekend with pizza, ice cream, and not healthy Chinese food. I know there is healthy Chinese food, but the kind I ate was not healthy. Not doing a race thing here, please calm down. I ate vegetables, healthy grains, low fat food, and lean meats today and my body is just dying. It's strange because I used to eat this all last year when I lost 30 lbs. I've been eating a lot of junk food the past few weeks due to stress. I ate a whole buffalo chicken pizza Saturday and Sunday and then a whole pint of ice cream after. I didn't go to the bathroom for a whole day after that. I think it's just a reaction from the poor diet the past few days. Work has been very stressful and I have to start studying again soon. I also don't really look forward to doing anything after work. I left work early today because I started early and I just sat there for a while. THere was nothing I wanted to do. I didn't want to do anything creative. I ended up texting friends and family and felt better after. I think I just needed to cool off. But right now I am just annoyed because my mid section keeps having hot flashes of cold and then burning hot. It's like acid reflux is back or something. IDK. I've also felt little motivation to post on this website the past few weeks. I'm sorry for not posting more or in people's journals. I just feel a little run down of late. I'll try to rest more and treat myself healthier and see what happens. Therapy tonight fortunately. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Amphibian220 339 Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 What is your main sporting activity? Do you work out on a daily basis? 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
DaBest 797 Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 It's all good bro. This is the crappy, dark time of year anyway. One step at a time. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 21 Author Share Posted January 21 The world is a better place today. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 Today I'm 117 weeks free from gaming. I've gotten into a bad habit the past few months where I just sleep as much as possible on Saturdays. I go to bed early, wake up late, lounge on the couch, and take a nap later. I can't tell what to think of this trend. On one hand I want to get angry at myself for not being productive today, but on the other hand I'm excited that I could finally rest after a long week. The past few weeks have been so busy for me and I just look forward to this rest. I think as the days have been darker I've trended into the direction of sleeping more and resting. Also, the past year has been so busy for me at work. So it makes sense that a simple 2 week vacation wouldn't fully recharge me in December. It's more of a sine wave function where I think I just have more energy from April to September and less from October to March and it just has certain amplitudes. All animals go through this and many animals hibernate in this time of year. I've decided not to be too upset. I still meal prepped 8 meals today, did laundry, had a video call with my mom, then had a virtual board game night and fun session with friends. So it's not like today was a failure or anything. I guess I still wish I could have spent maybe an hour studying, playing the drums, exercising, or doing some form of art or writing. I've had a very long series of discussions with my therapist about doing more things in moderation such as doing a hobby for 1 hour and switching to something else. I get stuck in a mindset of "do I want to do art for 8 hours? No? Then I'll just sleep and do nothing all day." That's really crushing me I think. As former gamers I think we struggle with doing anything for less than 1-2 hours and justifying its usefulness in our lives. We've binged games for 6-24+ hour periods of time on average for years and decades. It's so difficult to say "I had a lot of fun doing something for 30 minutes and then did something else" I find it funny how I'm over 2 years into quitting full time and I still struggle with time management. I hope if anyone is reading this that they can maybe find some comfort that I didn't just solve everything at once and find the magic potion to quitting games. I just deal with urges and persist on. Most days aren't a struggle anymore. I'm going to set reminders on my phone, like an alarm clock, where I just keep reminding myself that I can do an activity for a little bit or something. I also found something interesting: I've been making memes of my coworkers and posting them on our company website as a joke. They're not offensive memes or anything and are management approved. They're meant to boost morale in the office since we're working from home. I've learned more in Photoshop during the past 2 weeks of making memes than I did in downloading that huge class on Udemy because I actually have a desire to make something. If I want to do something that I can't do yet, I look up a tutorial online and remember it after. I'm going to start doing this for drums and animation. I'm just going to try and learn a song on the drums instead of learning everything perfectly for years. I want more fun and I'm smart enough to be efficient. In response to @Amphibian220, no I haven't even been doing anything active. I think being active would give me more energy in the mornings but I haven't been disciplined or even considered doing it more than 1 day per week. I'll try to address this soon with some yoga. And I apologize to people for not really being as active on the forums. I've just been doing a lot of thinking the past few weeks. Not about gaming or anything. I've just been thinking about how certain aspects of life make me feel and how to understand them. I consider this a form of spiritual thinking or active meditation with relationships to humans and activities. I've been studying how certain actions make me feel both good and bad. I've been learning a lot about myself and I think it will culminate into something that really binds energy and regulation into my life. 5 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TheNewMe2.0 1654 Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 Glad to see you're doing well. Your life sounds like you have a lot going on. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Amphibian220 339 Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 (edited) sometimes you get doubts of whether you should control yourself so stringently, but then did you ever notice how much discipline changes your environment? “When you’re at war, you know that everything is going to go against you. The terrain, weather, enemy, mistakes in communication etc. So you try to preplan and do everything right with as much pressure as possible to win. When you attack with that much force and intelligence, you’ve got the enemy on the run with his back turned towards you” paraphrasing Jocko Willink. i also thought on Erik’s post about craving comfort. He correctly remarked that this is what video games give us. The thing that I want to crave is conquest and it is a thing that is often confused with comfort. We are not on a conquest to achieve comfort. That would kill all purpose. We are on a conquest to find out what this life is. Can’t express it beyond that. If you want that long enough it starts to kill all fears one by one. Edited January 24 by Amphibian220 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Pochatok 186 Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 21 hours ago, BooksandTrees said: As former gamers I think we struggle with doing anything for less than 1-2 hours and justifying its usefulness in our lives. Oh my jeez you just crushed my universe with this sentence lmao. Never thought about this, but I am so sure you are correct to some extension! I actually noticed that the more I enjoy doing things in smaller bits, the more I can play games in moderation (when I relapse- been a month since the last time), although I still prefer not to play at all. Have you heard of a process called "metacognition"? I think it could help you appreciate small things more. 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
BooksandTrees 3503 Posted January 24 Author Share Posted January 24 7 hours ago, TheNewMe2.0 said: Glad to see you're doing well. Your life sounds like you have a lot going on. Thanks, I actually decided to tackle it a bit today. I got a lot done that I'll highlight below. 5 hours ago, Amphibian220 said: sometimes you get doubts of whether you should control yourself so stringently, but then did you ever notice how much discipline changes your environment? “When you’re at war, you know that everything is going to go against you. The terrain, weather, enemy, mistakes in communication etc. So you try to preplan and do everything right with as much pressure as possible to win. When you attack with that much force and intelligence, you’ve got the enemy on the run with his back turned towards you” paraphrasing Jocko Willink. i also thought on Erik’s post about craving comfort. He correctly remarked that this is what video games give us. The thing that I want to crave is conquest and it is a thing that is often confused with comfort. We are not on a conquest to achieve comfort. That would kill all purpose. We are on a conquest to find out what this life is. Can’t express it beyond that. If you want that long enough it starts to kill all fears one by one. I noticed that as well and made some important progress today that I'll mention below. 3 hours ago, Pochatok said: Oh my jeez you just crushed my universe with this sentence lmao. Never thought about this, but I am so sure you are correct to some extension! I actually noticed that the more I enjoy doing things in smaller bits, the more I can play games in moderation (when I relapse- been a month since the last time), although I still prefer not to play at all. Have you heard of a process called "metacognition"? I think it could help you appreciate small things more. I haven't heard of it. I have considered and experimented with what you mentioned with gaming in moderation before I started my 2+ years away. I couldn't moderate online games because I was so hooked on being the best in that universe of gaming. I think it might work with single player games that aren't open world and end within 1 hour or 3 hours tops. I haven't heard of metacognition but I think it's valid after reading about it. Today was good. I struggled a bit in the morning because I knew I wanted to do a lot of things. I thought it might be easier to relax and do nothing. I did that but felt groggy. Instead, I put some relaxing music on and did yoga for about 45 minutes. I then went and finally used my workout machine for the first time in 2 months (wow, that went fast). I felt great. I did a full body routine and felt so much better. I then cleaned, took a shower, and then studied for a whole hour. I'm so proud of myself. I really want to get in the habit of studying for an hour a day for 4 days per week or so and taking my time with this. I don't want to cram again. I'm also not going to watch the video lectures they gave and just do the problems this time. I'm going to pass this test. I know it. I want that paper. I still have 5 hours before bed too. So I think I'll make dinner (I meal prepped yesterday, but want to make more) and then relax for the night. I will consider writing a bit, trying some art, or the drums for 30 minutes also. 4 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Mohammad 262 Posted January 26 Share Posted January 26 Congrats @BooksandTreesfor 117 weeks from gaming! It is motivating for me to see how far you came 🙂 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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