Improved Indulgence Incidence

Indulgences - we all have them. Some take more control over us than we would like!

I'm certainly not the poster boy for perfection in various things in life. I am able to maintain a decent weight but that's with a lot of effort in terms of restricting myself. Where I sometimes run into struggles is with indulgences, and when enough is enough!

I am happy to say that I have a fair bit of self control.. but there are definitely times where that self control takes a nose dive. I don't know what it is; is it parasites, is it addiction to sugar, is it a weak mind? It's hard to pinpoint if it's one, all, or a mixture of them but for the most part, I am able to do a pretty good job when it comes to staying on task. More so in the past few months than I have for a while which has been a really welcome development!

I know that it's really important to not indulge in a lot of sugar or cheap calories like sweetened stuff. I can do a good job at that most days but there are some days that you are just going around the house to find the stored shit so that you can get a little fix hahaha. There's always that one piece of candy, or the one cookie that's stashed for later. Like a damn chipmunk, keeping the goods for later.

With the recent passing of Halloween here in the U.S. I did a really good job, better than previous years, in terms of keeping that candy craving at bay. I was able to control it more and it was good. In our house we do what's called the Switch Witch. The candy gets collected for the festivities, and then in the middle of the night, just like the Easter Bunny, the witch comes and takes the candy away and replaces it with a toy of some sort. This has been a really good way for us to not only keep our son engaged with the Halloween activities like every other kid, but it's a way to greatly reduce his sugar intake of unnecessary bullshit.

We do let him have a selection of candy. He gets to choose 5 pieces from the bag and that is his keep from the haul. It's a really good compromise because he loves things like Lego, we don't love him eating candy for so many health reasons like bad teeth, insane chemicals, artificial colors and the list goes on. Children are so severely negatively affected by these things and it's a known issue, but an unknown issue at the same time. A lot of people are sadly in denial on the whole thing which is unfortunate.

With the Halloween candy, there ends up being a hidden bag in the house afterwards which is a challenge. My wife and I have had issues in the past where we go into the bag and sneak out a few pieces here and there. With this year though, we've been a lot better! I have gone into the bag three times now, and gotten out a few samples. The amount that I am taking though is greatly reduced which is great!

It's a weird thing that might be connecting it, but I've been doing a fair bit of reading over the last few months, and listening to podcasts. The blue light from our phones, TV's, laptops and other electronic devices is not natural light. It is certainly included in the light we get from the sun but purified blue light that we are essentially getting from our devices is incredibly unnatural. It activates many areas of our brain, but of particular note is the dopamine and the "fight or flight" receptors. These are much more active with a really strong blue light than they are with a blended wavelength the sun provides, or if you use various filters.

The big change that I've made, which has improved my ability to handle my indulgences of various kinds, is that I've switched all of my devices to use the "night light" mode. This really reduces the blue light that is emitted and instead makes it more of a natural wavelength. It adds orange hues and others so that it's a mixture instead of straight shot of blue.

I made the change to all my devices and have been running an experiment on myself. Since I've done that, I've had better control over the urges and that's been a really noticeable change for me. I am hoping that I can dig into it more and see what other things I can tweak and optimize with this type of thing, but the Halloween candy has been the most noticeable improvement!

What about you, have you been able to better control your indulgences? Let me know in the comments!