Habits Are Weird

Breaking habits, even subtle and harmless ones, can be hard!

I, like many people, develop some habits and some of them are pretty random. One of the recent habits I've been doing regularly, and enjoying it at this point to be honest, is to take a shower at night before bed. I used to take a shower in the morning but in the summertime especially, when you're out all day you get pretty sweaty and gross. If I was really bad, of course I would shower but just mulling around the house or the immediate area outside, I wouldn't sweat and I'd just shower in the morning. For the longest time, I hesitated showering at night because years ago when I had insomnia issues, it ended up waking me up!

I think it was maybe 1 year ago, maybe 2, where I decided that I should probably shower in the evening so that I could try and relax a little while before bed. It worked pretty well, and I didn't have the insomnia issues of the past, so I have kept it up basically every night since! ...except the other night LOL

I don't know why, but I was feeling pretty lazy and I didn't do anything all day besides work on my computer, so there was really no sweat or anything. I thought I was tired and would just skip the shower and go to bed.. but my body said that shit ain't happening bro! I ended up laying awake for maybe 1.5 or 2 hours lol. It was really annoying! I got up, washed my face and shoulders, got super tired and fell asleep almost right away.

This was a really wild experience, because it goes to show how important rhythms and consistency is for our bodies in so many ways. We can develop a routine with something as simple as a shower, and when we break that routine after quite some time, our bodies freak out in a way LOL

I've heard of plenty of stories about routine that are wild. There have been examples where people are essentially dead but because they have done one specific routine every single day for decades, they do it. There was one example I remember well, where a guy worked for 40 years or something, ate the SAME breakfast, at the SAME time every day. It was some type of cereal, every single day, for decades. I believe the guy either retired and then had a stroke or something in the morning, was basically dead in most ways, but because he performed the same exact routine every single day, his body was in autopilot and he sat at the breakfast table and ate his cereal even though he was dead. I don't remember the rest of the details and I'm sure I could web search the thing, but I think the point is there.

It's interesting how we get into a routine, even mundane ones, and when we make random adjustments to that, it takes us some time to adapt to the changes. When I'm at a hotel or something, I don't have the issues that I had in this situation, but since I was home and broke my routine, things were all fucked up hahaha. I found it quite fascinating! You bet your ass the following night I took a fucking shower LOL so I could get some damn sleep!

What about you, have you had a harmless habit like this that ended up going sideways on you if you broke it? Let me know in the comments!