Kicking the unhealthy habits

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This year has been one of the toughest for me because of the time constraint in finishing up my thesis. As a result, I haven't been playing any sport, I rarely slept for more than four hours a day (but this started in September 2006), I was typing away almost non-stop for more than 12 hours, and my diet has shifted towards caffeinated, high-sugar foods to keep me awake during the extended writing periods. I have only refrained from consuming salty food because I was too scared of having a repeat attack of urinary tract infection (specially since I drive myself to work, and I wouldn't want to make a mess in the car), although I was really tempted to binge on chips.

But I passed the toughest part, which was the week running up to my submission date. And now, I'm slowly going back to the sane schedule; sans the jet lag from my last trip, I could now sleep continuously for six hours and I am back to eating normal, high-fibre food. The return to my normal diet has actually started in Brisbane where I opted to eat Subway sandwiches and sushi rolls from the noodle bar for snacks instead of my nine-month staple snack: choco chip cookies. And I am no longer drinking thick black coffee, and has replaced it with water.

And then, yesterday, I once again gripped my badminton racket for some warm-up practice with a fellow beginner, Harris. I was actually looking forward to be on the court again after so many months... badminton's such a good exercise. After a year of not playing seriously, my limbs were painful, but the persistent shoulder pain that I developed while writing my thesis (which I attribute to stress) vanished!

Looking back, Bob, my supervisor at the University of Queensland, was right: finishing up the PhD thesis manuscript is like suffering from a terminal illness. The unhealthy habits I developed during the run up to my submission made me sick, literally... And now, I'm finally starting to recover.

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