Any sugar?

Not being much of a drinker, I’ve never felt the need to do dry January. Also Ingrid and I sat in a restaurant in Barcelona on January 2nd drinking for the third night in row. We hadn’t got off to that great a start. Well today marks the completion of a dry month: dry January with a two day lag.

I also (mostly) managed to keep to my other goal of eliminating sugar from my tea and coffee. This meant I cut out at least three teaspoons of sugar a day for a month. I can’t say it was easy. For a while I compensated by hoovering up the post-Christmas chocolates. Then came a period of the blues, though that was probably just confirmation bias. They don’t call the third Monday of January “blue Monday” for nothing.

But after a few weeks I found myself enjoying cups of tea and coffee without sugar. My mood improved, which had nothing to do with a couple of sunny days and/or the release of new Civ VI DLC. It all comes out for Macs much later than on PC and at unspecified times. It’s the gaming equivalent of “Waiting for Godot”.

Now I am looking for the next small modification I can make. I think it has to be related to sleep. I am reading “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker and every sentence feels like a denouncement of my current habits. I’m a terrible sleeper and I need to get better at that. Perhaps one for when the post-Australia jetlag is over?

• Sugar
• Self Improvement
• Eighteen