Holidays are on the way …
As my internship at BioRICS is coming to an end, I’d like to give you an overview of the four months I have monitored and my latest new experiences with Mindstretch.
My first weeks’ monitoring – which started in February – teached me a lot about myself. My weeks mostly started with ‘green’ days but towards the end, nearly always became ‘orange’. I clearly had to get used to the “working life”. In March, as I became adapted, working made me consume less energy and more days became ‘green’. Since then, I started feeling at ease in this new environment and I can see it in my graphs as they show a lot of recovery almost every day.
Looking at my monthly overviews, March was actually the most ‘orange’ month, because I had many things to do. My agenda was overloaded both in weekends and in the evening during the week. Rehearsing and playing concerts were the main reasons. As I told you before, playing music and especially a wind instrument, is a very energy-taking activity. Besides music, the biggest trigger of energy loss was socializing. Going out with friends for dinner or drinks is really fun but asks a lot of mental energy. This was also visible in April, when I went on vacation and which I even had to recover from afterwards!
Stay in the green, manage your energy-use
In May, being sick gave me another ‘orange’ week. The last weekend of May, I went hiking. This was a completely new experience for me. With 15 kilos in my backpack, I walked through the woods for 15kms. This was reflected in my graph since hiking asked physical AND mental energy. Back home, the last straight line to the finish of my internship and thesis started. As this is a quite stressful period, I wanted to anticipate on it by making sure to strictly follow my time-scheme. I also closely kept an eye on my monitoring results and decided to be disciplined in going to bed early. Thanks to the good nights, I recovered well and felt productive during the day.
I want to thank BioRICS for the opportunity to learn about stress & my body and to grow in my experience using this tool to stay in balance.
