Welcome to the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge brought together by WEGO Health – a social network for all health activists.  Again, I am participating in the annual Writer’s Month Challenge in which I will be writing about my health activism and health condition based on given prompts.

Saturday 4th April: Creature of Habit 

What good habits (health or otherwise) do you have?  Do you have a routine that you follow every morning?  Are there any bad habits you wish you could break?

As someone living with a chronic illness, my obvious morning routine consists of making sure that I take my daily medication to help manage the symptoms caused by my neurological condition.

Routine is something which is defined as ‘a sequence of actions regularly followed.’  Therefore, a routine follows a predictable pattern.

The only thing predictable about living with a chronic illness, however, is the unpredictable nature of our daily lives.

As a result, being able to maintain a routine is extremely difficult as we never know how we are going to feel from one day to the next.  We do not know whether our bodies are going to cooperate on that particular day.  About my own experiences of living with a chronic illness, due to spastic paraparesis, my legs are weak, and often there are days that I am unable to get out of bed due to the severity of the weakness.  When these days occur, therefore any routine and habits that I do follow become impractical.

It is not only the physical symptoms that make it difficult to follow a daily routine successfully, but other symptoms such as pain, insomnia, and fatigue are also obstacles in the ability to maintain a routine.  Due to fluctuating pain levels, I often find it difficult to sleep.  As a result, my sleep patterns become disordered and out of kilter; finding myself waking early in the morning one day and sleeping in late the next.  And fatigue is the most significant hurdle in my opinion as very often you feel too exhausted to be able to do anything besides lying down and watching television!

Regarding wishing, if there were any bad habits, I would like to break, I suppose I would choose to check my phone less!  I do check it often, as it often feels that it is my most significant connection to others (through social media) and the world outside my house.