Tag: health

Han Jan

I love my morning coffee.

It’s 8:11 am. I’m still adjusting to my early wakeup times. You would think that my body would not wake itself up before it had had enough sleep. That it would just keep sleeping. There is no reason for me to get up so early if I don’t have to. My brain knows that.

The body responds to its own cues. That’s why I get up at 5:23 am yesterday, even if I wasn’t asleep until midnight. And today, 7:20 am.

I did better falling asleep last night, I think I was out before midnight, but there was a long period of undesired wakefulness. I had turned off the AC at some point, and it turned out that that was a mistake, as I was uncomfortably hot. It was 80 degrees in the house, if our thermostat is to be trusted, which I sometimes doubt. That was my excuse anyway, for being stuck in bed, awake, when I just wanted to enter the sweet dream world of sleep, so that I could get started on the next day.

The morning is a precious time. Special things happen in the morning. Yesterday morning I decided to try a new experiment. This morning I am thinking about a butterfly that I had raised, and a Go Pro, and a past love, and its sad end. (This is all one story.)

On another morning not too long ago, I began a story that I have finished, that I am supposed to be working on right now.

Does anyone else… do you wake up with songs in your head? I do. Almost every morning, I wake up “listening” to a song in my head.

It always seems random. Often the song comes deep out of left field. A song that I haven’t heard since middle school. Yesterday I think it was a Nickleback song, Far Away. Today it was Han Jan, by Peggy Gou.

Why? I haven’t been listening to these songs.

I want to be here for the mornings. If I sleep in too much, especially if I sleep in to a horrific hour like 10 am, I feel like I’ve committed a crime. But, I don’t know if I am exactly a morning person. It’s just that I know the morning is such a precious time, and magical things can happen.

I woke up at the crack of dawn for the first time in what seemed like years, probably a month ago. I couldn’t believe that I was awake. I didn’t know what to do. That’s what happens when you’re used to getting up late, and you wake up at 5 am. You’re early to the party by five hours. What the hell are you supposed to do now? You’ve got so much time on your hands.

That morning, I went outside, and sat in my yard. I was meditating. That was all I really wanted to do, then. About twenty minutes in, I heard some crunching sounds, on our gravel driveway. I didn’t think much of them, but I kept hearing them, getting closer, soft crunching, and I had the feeling that something was moving around on the driveway. I opened my eyes, and there, between my roommate’s black Nissan Altima, and the fence, was a small deer, staring at me.

I was shocked, of course. A deer, in our yard? What? There’s never been a deer in our neighborhood, let alone my yard. This is the city. We’re right off of Gallatin. What are you doing here?

It was the last thing I expected to see that morning, or ever, in our yard.

That morning, I also spied several neighborhood cats, sneaking around, in our yard right under our noses, living their secret cat lives. I felt like I was seeing a whole new world.

I think that the morning, like late night, is a liberating time. That might be the secret of the morning.

It’s time that at least I can feel like, it’s totally mine. I somehow have a free pass to do absolutely anything I want with this time. And so I can enjoy myself and live to the fullest, untethered by responsibilities or expectations. That’s great for the spirit, and for creativity.

These recent nights, I have spent in Harry Potter world, reading by candlelight. At 3 am, I exist in the wizarding world, I read about Snape’s past, I learn the secrets…

Morning is also the best time because you get to have your first cup of coffee for the day.

I was thinking about the butterfly that I had mentioned earlier, this morning, staring out of the window… I’m sure it’s on my mind because yesterday, I noticed that I had a green caterpillar, possibly mid-transformation into a cocoon or chrysalis, on my blue plastic tarp that I use to cover my bike in the yard. It seemed to have adhered itself to the plastic and was sluggish, hardly conscious. And if it does decide to settle down there, it kind of becomes my caterpillar, my cocoon or chrysalis, my project. I will have to watch over it.

I’m going to go check on it now…

And there you have it, folks.

Overnight it has become a chrysalis.

I will watch over you, my child!

Visual Stimulation (Sensory Needs)

*Sunday night writing from 805B the home base*

About one and a half hours ago, I wanted to do some writing. That’s what I wanted to do, but when I sat down and tried to do it, I couldn’t. I was feeling restless. I was having a craving for something, a need for something, something stimulating, something fun, something new.. but I couldn’t pin it down. Usually when I want to play, I have an idea of what I want to do – something like joke around with someone, play a sport, go somewhere, take a walk and make some discoveries, play a game – but today, in that moment I wasn’t feeling any of those things. For lack of a better idea, I tried them. I even tried meditating, which does help with restlessness, but I knew that wasn’t what I needed either, and it helped a little, but I still had the feeling of needing something. I asked my new roomie Hope for some ideas, and she fired off a few good ones, and I settled on trying to figure out a Rubik’s cube while going for a walk, which kept me preoccupied for about 20 minutes, and was distracting, but didn’t satisfy the urge, my restlessness either. I didn’t want to play more guitar, and I didn’t want to walk around Shelby Park. I didn’t want to play a game on the Switch, but from the outset of all of this, I’m remembering, is that I wanted to play Fortnite. That was actually my original desire. I couldn’t play Fortnite at that time, but this is important, because after trying all of these different strategies to cure my itch, I decided to watch what is my guilty pleasure, high-level Korean League of Legends gameplay.

Something interesting happened.

I watched my Korean League gameplay video for about 20 minutes, and whatever craving I had had in my brain, whatever restlessness I felt, it was relieved. The video was 33 minutes long, but I didn’t finish it. After 20 minutes I could tell that I was satisfied, and felt refreshed. I felt normal. And then, I found that I could sit down and do the writing that I had wanted to do.

Now, just yesterday my sister was telling me all about her journey with ADHD and what Adderall has done for her, and she mentioned that in college, she had a therapist who suggested that before she tried to study, she should watch a short video that had colors and movement, to give her brain some “stimulation”. Writing and studying don’t seem like they’re all that different, to me. Both are mental tasks that require focused attention and concentration. And what was keeping me from doing my writing here was that I wasn’t able to, in that moment, summon the powers of concentration and mental focus that were needed.

My sister said watching the video her therapist recommended really helped her. I think that watching the League of Legends video helped me in the same way. A League of Legends gameplay video is nothing but movement and colors. It also contains a plethora of exciting sounds and moments. Being an ex-League addict, I can’t and don’t want to play the game ever again – but watching League gameplay does seem to do something positive for me. Before I thought it was just that it was entertaining for me, just like watching a sports match. It’s just like watching a game of basketball. Which, I was going through a period of my life where instead of watching League gameplay videos, I would enjoy watching pro soccer highlights. Once a day or every few days, I would fire up a few Champions League, Premier League, La Liga, videos, and enjoy those. I would get bored after a while, something like 15-20 minutes. I guess that something similar in every case is happening, giving my brain some kind of pleasurable stimulation. Tonight, after watching my League video, it was just really noticable how different I felt, and especially after I had tried several other remedies.

The thing is, I don’t have ADHD. I have taken the tests a few times, and don’t really show any of the symptoms. I don’t forget where I put things, I have no problems concentrating on tasks for long periods of time, I don’t have distracting thoughts, and am able to tune out the environment, such as if I am walking with a friend and having a conversation, I have no problems with listening to someone even if we are in a public place with other conversations around us, I have no problems with waiting in line, or being patient, etc. etc. etc. Yet, it seems that in the same way that my sister with ADHD benefits from watching a stimulating video, I benefit too. So what does that mean?

There’s something else going on there. And it seems that it is something visual. Today I had a lot of mental stimulation – learning how to sing while playing a song, conversating with a friend, writing, and maybe that’s why attempting to solve the Rubik’s Cube wasn’t what I needed. I had also in the past few days had all the fun I could have asked for, and that wasn’t really what I needed either. I think about how my first idea to fix my craving was to play Fortnite, but not the other games that I could have played, like Minecraft, or Legend of Zelda. Fortnite, like League of Legends, is fast-paced, and packed with colors, noises, and movement. So, it seems like that’s what my brain wanted, that’s what it needed. Maybe I needed some exciting visual stimulus.

Thinking about visual stimulus, and a need to see interesting things.. I do like seeing things. I love spotting things in nature, I love going for walks and finding new things, and those new things can be anything like an interesting flower in someone’s yard, an interesting sign that says something silly, a bumper sticker, a cool car, an interesting character, anything out of the ordinary, anything that catches my attention. I also like photography and visual arts, and making visual art, purely for how it catches the eye. As an example, here are some macro photos of drops that I edited in Lightroom. I just tweaked parameters until I felt that the photo was visually interesting enough and was satisfying for me.

I do this just because it’s stimulating and fun for me to look at. There’s nothing else to it, really. It’s a purely sensory thing. But it’s new for me to think about a need for visual stimulation. I wouldn’t have though it was a need before, just something that I enjoyed. But tonight, and seeing how I felt before and after the colorful, energetic, League video, it seems like I really had a craving for visual sensory stimulation.

I did a little Googling, and it seems that that is a real need. The need for sensory stimulation – sound, touch, taste, smell, sight. I feel like I’ve known that babies need that, but I wouldn’t have thought that adults needed it as much. I think about the joy I get in eating an interesting and complex meal, with a variety of flavors and textures, or with something totally new in it, and I think about now how the pleasurable feeling you get is something more than just being delicious. It’s not just the fact that it’s delicious, it’s the fact that you’re getting sensory stimulation, stimulating your sense of taste, and that’s good for your brain.

When I think about this topic, of human needs and identify human needs and identifying our own needs.. we really have a lot of needs. It’s almost tiring. You need to talk to people, you need to play, you have physical needs, for sleep, for movement, for nutrition, you have intellectual needs, you have spiritual needs, emotional needs, and now, what, you have purely sensory needs too. UGH. So many needs!!!! No wonder that everybody’s got problems. How many people are actually getting everything they need?