Growing up as the first child and daughter of my family, I lived my first few years in happiness. Everything I ever wished for was placed on my laps. My dad made sure of it. He would say ”Give my little princess whatever she wants”.
Sadly, as more siblings began to come into my family, the weight of responsibility rested heavily on my shoulders and that princessy lifestyle became reduced but that mindset did not leave me. Whatever I wanted, I strived to get. It made me somewhat competitive and whenever I could not get what I wanted, I went into sick mode….. literally. I would start having a fever and serious headaches.
Medicines would be prescribed, but they only treated the symptoms and not the root cause of my supposed sickness.
This was the first phase..
Upon entering the labour market to start working, the thrill of earning my own money satisfied me so much so that whenever I didn't have money, I'd become depressed and sickly. My colleagues could easily tell when I'm broke because I would wear my heart on my sleeve and that led them to calling me an open book.
”See, Becky is looking sad and lost. She must be broke”. These were the words of my closest colleagues back then and they didn't lie. I would become sad and depresses. From nowhere, headache would start again. At a time, I thought I was suffering from migraines but one credit alert was enough to make me well in an instant. Headache and depression would fly out the window and I'd be smiling like a jelly fish.
Looking back in retrospect, I can't believe I lived like that, lol.
This was phase two.
The third lifestyle I had to change from was sleeplessness. Back then,motivational seminars were popular and one thing these motivational speakers preached was that if you want to be as rich as Dangote,then you can't sleep for 8 hours. Dangote doesn't sleep for 8hours. He sleeps for only 2 hours.
I bought those words hook, line and sinker because I wanted to be as rich as Dangote(or so I thought). Soon I began to notice that I was becoming ugly, with dark circles and eyebags and I was always feeling fatigue during the day. I could barely focus on my work during the day.
Thank goodness I didn't come to any harm as back then, I worked with an electric sewing machine used to sew leather accessories. As usual, the pharmacy was go to spot for medicinal relief but yet with all these, I wasn't getting richer but I was getting more broke by the day.
It was a kind colleague whom I discussed with that told me that such a lifestyle would send me to an early grave. She advised me to rest and get my beauty sleep. She also reminded me of the benefits of sleep. Fortunately I listened to her and before long, I started seeing positive changes.
I used to depend on painkillers like paracetamol, novalgin and ibuprofen a lot back then but after changing that sleepless lifestyle, my medicinal dependency reduced a lot.
That was my third phase.
All these phases were periods in my life when I depended on medications but no permanent cure came out of it. I had to effect changes to my habits, thoughts and lifestyle by gaining knowledge through reading good books. I also began to understand the dynamics of money and savings. This helped me to stop being broke all the time.
Lastly, I made sure to get my complete 8 to 10 hours of sleep and combined it with exercise and good feeding habits.
I don't go to the gym but I practice going out for long walks on a daily basis. I walk from home to my place of work rather than opting for transportation. Eating well and regularly has kept me free from prescriptions.
With the way I work these days, if I don't eat good food and eat the food on time, I'll probably be visiting the hospital on a regular basis or become dependent on some prescriptions again but these few changes have helped me a lot in keeping me free from prescription dependency.
Thank you all for reading.
Images source: Meta Ai.