{"id":1042,"date":"2014-06-01T16:33:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-01T23:33:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/?p=1042"},"modified":"2014-06-01T16:33:26","modified_gmt":"2014-06-01T23:33:26","slug":"an-idea-for-a-bedtime-routine-or-an-exercise-in-gratitude-and-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/an-idea-for-a-bedtime-routine-or-an-exercise-in-gratitude-and-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"an idea for a bedtime routine, or an exercise in gratitude and perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Every night before you head off to bed,\u00a0write down with pen and paper:<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li>Three good experiences you had\u00a0during the day, and<\/li>\n<li>why those good\u00a0experiences\u00a0happened, or<\/li>\n<li>why you think these were good\u00a0experiences.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You will soon find that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This habit is\u00a0easily maintained. It takes about fifteen minutes, and you can quickly get back into practice if you miss a day.<\/li>\n<li>It becomes an effective way to remind yourself of all the wonderful things that happen in your life regularly. We all need reminders from time to time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>~<\/p>\n<p><em>But what happens if I struggle to find even three good things today?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Some days are harder than others, definitely. If that is a genuine statement, then I won&#8217;t resort to a platitude (e,g,\u00a0<em>there&#8217;s always a silver lining!<\/em>\u00a0as the Americans like to say)<em>\u00a0<\/em>or tell you to get over it. Few people actively wish for a shitty day.<\/p>\n<p>But if you&#8217;ve done this exercise for a while, you can take a look back at your previous entries when you&#8217;re in a slump. Perhaps a brief visit to a past memory is all you need to keep on going.<\/p>\n<p>Rotten days are rotten for a reason, and remembering three good things that happened during the day won&#8217;t change that. But over time, those rotten days become less suffocating and dominating &#8212; especially in comparison to everything else that has gone well in your life.<\/p>\n<p>I like this exercise because it&#8217;s a good way to stay sane and in good spirits.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>My good neighbors Brian and Maja have been making this a daily conversation topic at night, and I do enjoy hearing what they have to say. I got the idea from them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every night before you head off to bed,\u00a0write down with pen and paper: Three good experiences you had\u00a0during the day, and why those good\u00a0experiences\u00a0happened, or why you think these were good\u00a0experiences. You will soon find that: This habit is\u00a0easily maintained. It takes about fifteen minutes, and you can quickly get back into practice if you &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/an-idea-for-a-bedtime-routine-or-an-exercise-in-gratitude-and-perspective\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;an idea for a bedtime routine, or an exercise in gratitude and perspective&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3MSpn-gO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions\/1045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}