Day 120 - Measuring accurately ⚖️
📖Daily Reading
Proverbs 11
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Proverbs 11: 1
The Lord detests the use of dishonest scales, but he delights in accurate weights.
This is a really interesting passage. Measuring ‘should’ be an objective exercise, but often it can be subjective, complicated, downright unreliable and even a tool of deception depending on who is doing the measuring. Someone who is ‘preying’ or capitalizing on uniformed, lazy, ignorant, distracted, naive consumers will profit in the short term from their ‘playing’ with the numbers. It is a cautionary but very tempting strategy. You hear about it all the time and usually the deceiver or business that uses this strategy ends up paying for it in the end.
There are so many analogies that came to mind as I was thinking of this. We live in a time where we measure and track nearly everything we do. We carry around smart phones, and wear smart devices and watches that track and measure everything from our steps, calories consumed, calories burned, breathing, heart rate, sleep, you name it and there is an app and/or a device that is measuring and tracking. We put a lot of faith and trust in these devices too. We might allow ourselves to eat a ‘well earned’ piece of cake based on our movement tracking. What if later we learned that the device was off and was giving us inaccurate measurements that we were then using to make other decisions? Not only does the Lord delight in accurate weights but accurate measuring and weighing allows us to make accurate decisions, so we also delight in accurate measuring as consumers and we don’t appreciate being duped or deceived.
So we have to think of this passage in reference also to ourselves and not be self deceiving. Tracking when done manually can also be manipulated, we might ‘forget’ to count the bites of Mac n cheese as we are cleaning the kids plates or the small handful of nuts we grab as a snack, this is really important because if you are on a weight loss journey and you don’t track everything, it adds up and then you can deceive yourself thinking you have ‘tried everything’ and ‘nothing is working’ and then you give up. But the truth may be that you are not accurately measuring and but then believing and relying on the measurements. This can be true for lots of things.
Let’s look at sleep as another example. If we measure sleep by hours spent in bed this may or may not give us an accurate measurement of sleep. We can all understand this, especially on nights when you have insomnia, you know that you can be in bed without being asleep. But let’s do a bit deeper. Let’s say you are in bed and ‘asleep’ for 8 hours, and you do this regularly, but you are still experiencing tiredness and low energy. This might be really frustrating, because you are measuring and tracking and according to the data you are getting enough sleep but not feeling the results of actually being rested and restored. If you wear a smart device, it might even confirm that you were in fact ‘sleeping’. What could be going on? Let’s look at what this person might be doing during their waking hours and particularly before bed on a regular basis.
This person is having a ‘night cap’ or three thinking that they think is helping them sleep. After all it is making them drowsy and sleepy and they in fact get in bed and go right to sleep. What is not so apparent and if you don’t understand the science of what is happening in the body and brain during true sleep you might also make the same mistake and think that being unconscious is the same as sleeping. 🛌 😴 💤 . What we are learning about the brain and sleep is helping us to understand that there is a BIG difference. There is a lot going on that is essential during sleep and our brains in fact are quite active and need to go through very specific sleep cycles. When we have alcohol, this process and these cycles don’t happen, until the alcohol wears off. Hence the 3 am wake up that many of us have when the alcohol wears off. It is only after this happens that you are actually getting true sleep. So you can see that accurate measuring can be essential. Many of us are doing things out of ignorance and not understanding the impact we are having on our own health and simultaneously walking around like frustrated zombies thinking that we are getting enough sleep and confused why we are so exhausted. Because of the lack of accurate measuring we are undermining and sabotaging ourselves.
Once I learned more about sleep science and what was chemically happening in my body and the impact that even a small amount of alcohol has on our brains and bodies, it was a wake up call (pun intended)! I committed myself to learning more and going where the truth and accurately led me no matter what and no matter how much I ‘liked’ the answer or not. I am all about making informed decisions, but you can’t do that without knowing the truth and without having reliable data and understanding of the data. Once you know the truth and have accurate information and measuring tools and then you choose not to heed it, is being willfully ignorant in my humble opinion. Once I know better, I try to do better, or at least I am willing move in that direction. No one is perfect, me included, but I am making a committed and conscious choice to be informed about my health and take personal responsibility to do the best I can based on the information and tools I have at the time. It is a journey of progress over perfection.
I will tell you this, once I learned more about sleep science and the true impact of alcohol on the human body and mind, I chose to eliminate it from my life, #soberforthehealthofit. I now know what it feels like to get a full and good quality night of sleep and the difference that is makes on my experience of life and my energy. I know what it feels like to not have good sleep. I am amazed at the miracle of the human bodies ability to adapt and take care of us no matter what we do to it with our lifestyle choices. But eventually those choices do catch up with you. I hear a lot of people in their 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and beyond talk about the consequences of getting older and I know it is actually their own lifestyle choices. I used to blame it on that too. We women also love to blame a lot of things on menopause, like night sweats. I also happen to know that a lot of these same people enjoy a cocktail or three on a regular basis. If you are reading this and skeptical, try taking a 30-90 day break from alcohol - try it and test it - don’t just take my word for it! It takes that long for your body to get back to its natural state of homeostasis.
To bring it back full circle, if you are measuring your sleep based on hours unconscious but still feeling exhausted, low energy, think that this is just what it means to get older and you are doing a few things health wise like having alcohol even a small amount on a regular basis, or overeating, not moving etc.. your measurement might be inaccurate and giving you false data. Good sleep is foundational, it is a game changer for your quality of life. It essential and non-negotiable to me. I am still amazed and in awe of my body for taking care of me for so long despite my ignorance with taking care of it
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Is there an area or aspect of your life where you might not be measuring accurately? Are you knowingly or unknowingly deceiving yourself?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Proverbs 12
Coaching Opportunity
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