Journaling

There was a while back when I felt the worst that I got pretty good at keeping a log of my symptoms. Isn’t it funny how that works? When you feel worse you will do anything to feel better but as you start feeling better you stop doing the things you should? At least I know that’s how it is for me. I was really great there for a while at exercising too; unless I felt so bad I couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get out of bed, I got on the treadmill. Lately, as I’ve felt better I’ve not been exercising as much. I have (on the other hand) been trying to work some other exercises into my routine when I do exercise. Lately, I’ve been getting back on the Wii Fit and the DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) to get a little more cardio and at the same time finally start to work my upper body a little more.

The pain from my TMJ has been a lot better lately too. I’ve been eating more normally. I’ll usually try to eat something if it’s in front of me and see how it’s going to affect me. I actually ate some salad a week or so ago. It wasn’t that it hurt it was just that some parts of it were impossible to chew and I knew after trying to eat it for a few minutes that if I kept it up it would hurt. But, I can chew again and I can do some crunchy foods again without them bothering me as much.

But to the journaling, I’ve been getting worse and worse. Often I think I should journal more just so I have a record of things. My memory still sucks. I still use Remember The Milk to help me track what I need to get done in a day, and I still can’t remember what stops I need to make when I’m out unless I write myself a sticky note and put it on the dashboard (and even then I’ll have to double back sometimes).

The thing is that it’s when I’m feeling better overall that I probably need to journal the most, or keep a log of my symptoms. Those are the days when I’m most likely to be able to find a link between what is bothering me and why it might be bothering me. Those are the days when I’m most likely to see that yes exercising in the morning does make me feel better and wakes me up. I know this and yet I still don’t do it enough. There’s no telling what other connections I might make if I started keeping track of what was going on.