Do you hate feeling hungover?
I do too! I realized in 2020, I often wrote the same thing in my 5-minute journal. At night, you write highlights of the day and you answer the question, what did I learn today? The answer to that question, maybe once a month was, I don’t like feeling hungover, I don’t like wasting my day, or I fed my body crap today because I felt terrible. On December 12th of 2022, I went on a journey to create a new habit - If I am going to drink, it will be a maximum of 2 drinks. This is very easy during the week because I am a social drinker, not the I’ll have a drink to wind down the day drinker. So on weekends, when I was social, it usually included some wine, and depending on how long the night was, that was how many drinks I had.
I started tracking my drinks on 12/12/22 - I know right before the holiday season seemed like a weird time to start, but we create the future in the present and that is the day that my awareness told me was the time to start - in that present moment. After 6 weeks, which included Christmas and New Years, I realized that I could be just as social, have just as much fun, and wake up the next day feeling great. In fact, most of those days, I had zero drinks. I have continued this habit to this day and plan to keep it going. Big changes start with awareness of what you want to change and small steps to lead the way. And of course, giving yourself the grace to allow your changes to unfold and to accept imperfection.
I haven’t been hungover since December 11, 2022 - AND I don’t feel like I missed anything. In fact I feel like I gained more time, more energy, more and better interactions with people, and definitely felt much more love for myself.
Try this Exercise to figure out what habits you may want to change.
Start a nighttime journaling practice:
All you need is a piece of paper and a pen or your notes app on your phone
Spend 1-minute breathing - 4 breaths in, hold for 4, 4 breaths out, with eyes closed if you are comfortable with that.
Once you open your eyes, reflect on 3 highlights of the day and 1 thing that you learned.
Do this for a week - check in at the end of the week, is there something in the highlights that you want to do more of? Are there things you are learning that you want to create new habits based on these learnings?
Continue doing this each week; insights and feelings will emerge. As you reflect, you can put your hand on your heart and your other hand on your gut. These are the parts of the body that can lead the way to what’s best for you.