I listen to my body, mostly.

When my body tells me to eat, I eat. When it tells me to sleep, I sleep. Being super aware of what your body is telling you is a good thing to be doing. I recommend it.

I don't always like it's the suggestion, but I usually go along with it. When my body tells me that I have overeaten, I try to listen, so I stop eating. It's not easy to do, but I drag myself away from the table, kicking and screaming. When it tells me to slow down because I am heating up, I slow down, and for added measure, I drink some water.

See, we align on stuff, my body and me!

We actually get along well enough because it talks, and I always try to listen.

We seldom fall out, but we have had our moments.

Our most significant disagreement comes from when my body calls me out for tiredness and suggests taking a nap. I usually resist. I push back because I know I will enjoy the nap, and I agree I need to rest. I just hate the grogginess that comes after a nap. It's a horrible feeling. It's like having a brain that is smothered in cotton candy and detached from my stick of a body. It is a crappy feeling, and I find the nap makes me worse. It makes me cranky and lazy.

The alternative of not taking a nap is also a crappy feeling, and that also makes me cranky. I also hate taking a nap because I feel I am losing time, but when I am tired, I am not usually that productive anyway. It is a lose/lose situation all around, and I hate putting myself into that type of place. I need to fix that.

So today, after my afternoon nap, from which I am now awake and cranky, I have decided to make a change. It's a logical change and something many people probably do already, but I never did because I would listen to my body - and wait for it to wake me up from my sleep naturally.

From now on, when I hear my body shout, rest up man, take a nap. I will listen, but I will meet it halfway. From now on will set the timer and have an alarm wake me up. This approach is new for me and a big step because I have never used an alarm to wake up in my life. Well, maybe on a very odd occasion like a stupid o'clock time for a flight or something like that.

So set an alarm it is. It will take some trial and error to establish what my optimum nap time is. I reckon a good starter for ten will be fifty minutes. Ten minutes upfront, which will allow me to shift off to sleep and forty minutes of some energy recovering sleep. We will see. I will take notes and work out times of day and a length of time to suit my mind, body and soul.

This nap thing will be good to get right before I get into some sort of semi-retirement in the near future, so this is an excellent little exercise to explore now that I am off work for two weeks.

But I plan to do a lot across the next two weeks. I plan to keep very busy and active. So I might be extra tired, and my body might be screaming to get my attention sometimes.

I just hope then that I remember to set my alarm before falling asleep.

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