Your body wants to scream

I went home for the holidays and spent time with my nephew. He cried a lot. That’s because he got hungry and tired, and he’s 1 year old. 

It was fascinating to see the impact that even a 15-minute delay to his nap schedule had on his ability to cope. Small changes in his diet and dinner schedule were detrimental to his ability to stave off a meltdown. 

It got me thinking that we aren’t so different. 

As adults, we’ve learned to not cry when we’re hungry and we’ve learned not to scream when we’re tired, but make no mistake: our bodies want to. We’ve just trained them not to. 

The reason self-development nerds like me get excited about morning routines and schedule optimization is because it helps us save decision-making energy for the important stuff. Instead of taking a deep breath so I don’t bark at a contractor (because I stayed up too late last night), I can save that energy to make higher quality decisions. To listen more. To be more present. 

If we’re rarely at our wits end, we’ll always have our wits about us. This is why I try to keep my diet more consistent than my nephew’s.