The SAD diaries is a documentation of my experiences, feelings and thoughts in combating season affective disorder (SAD). 

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The shift in attitude I've had over the past few days has been HUGE. It's like feeling down and depressed has given me the motivation I need to start doing the things I've been wanting to do for such a long time - it's given me a reason to start. I know I should have found the motivation in myself, but you know what? How I got here doesn't matter, as long as I'm feeling this way now. 

I've actually started doing, I've started pressing forward on my action plans instead of thinking about them over and over in my head. Perfectionism is part of my anxiety, and I'm starting to finally start to realise that there is no perfect time to do anything, there is no perfect way to do anything, and that you actually have to just start before you can think of improving. How can you improve on something that you don't know how good you are at? 

I'm not saying that my anxiety has stopped completely due to this attitude shift, but it's definitely calmed down a lot, and I've found myself completely forgetting the things that I was previously worrying about. I feel as though I'm in a better place already and I'm only at the beginning of my journey. The difficult part is going to be pushing through the tough times when eventually I'll have a down day. I'm not saying this to be negative, I'm saying this to be real, because let's be honest, absolutely nobody is 100% happy and positive all the time - we all go through down days. It's how you deal with those down days that makes all the difference; am I going to break down and give up, or am I going to realise that it's just one day, pick myself up and carry on because I've been doing amazingly?

Previously, I mentioned that I wanted to implement exercise into my routine and I am extremely proud to say that I've been running for a week straight so far. This is a MASSIVE deal to someone who only normally does one day of exercise and gives up until the next year. I've been getting into the habit of waking up, putting on my exercise clothes and just going out - it's got to the stage now, where I don't want to let myself down by missing a day and, to be honest, I look forward to getting outside and moving my body now. 

The third day was the real test for me because on the previous night, I only got to sleep around 3AM and I had work at 12PM. My head was telling me to get a bit more sleep, that it wouldn't matter if I missed one day, but my body just kept on waking me up to the point that I just took control, got out of bed and went out for my run. I made a conscious decision that day to go out despite not wanting to, and it made me feel all the better for conquering something that would have previously made me sleep as long as I could. That run actually made me feel amazing and was definitely the wake up I needed that day.

Over the past couple of days, I've been using the Headspace meditation app on my runs which has helped me become more mindful when I'm out. Andy Puddicombe (the voice behind Headspace) is joined by Chris Bennett (Nike Running's global head coach) where they guides you through your running experience with encouragement, tips, and the realisation that you don't need to push yourself to exhaustion to have a good run. Headspace is meditation orientated, but I would class the running exercises on the app to be more of a mindful guidance than a meditation. It's a healthy alternative to just listening to some upbeat tunes on your headphones but I'll try and go into this in more detail in another blog post when I've had a bit more experience with it.

I'm so happy with how far I've come in only a few days that it just makes me even more excited to carry on and see what I can accomplish for myself and my mental and physical health.