HALF MARATHON RUNNING FOR MIND

I'm a person who likes to be on my own a lot of the time. I am not a great fan of being surrounded by people 24/7. I have to have downtime to read, listen to music, to watch a few shows on netflix or to simply sit on my own with nothing but my thoughts. Being this type of person can be quite hard when you get to university especially if you live with very outgoing and extrovert people. Thankfully I lived with people who were understanding that not everyone wants to go out 3/4 times a week and stay up until the sunrises and I am INCREDIBLY thankful for this.

Also I am a morning person. A typical day for me would see my alarm go off at 6am and me closing my book or closing my laptop at 10pm. I have always been this way and will probably always be this way and this is a reason why I would never be able to work in a bar. I just get too tired. This tiredness thing is really annoying. Somedays (most days) I wake up almost as tired as I was when I went to bed. It's just one of those things I guess but it is tres annoying none-the-less. It is also for this reason that I get up early because I know that if I do all I need to do before 5pm then I will complete my tasks with energy that I will not have come dinner time.

I exercise a lot and eat very healthily, not as a part of a weight loss diet, but because it is something (the exercise that is) that calms me and gives me a sense of achievement. It's an hour or so out of my day when I am completely focused on the single challenge that I have to complete, be that an hour of circuits, some sprints or a 10km run. I usually do this in the morning as it puts me in a good mood moving forward, the rest of the day (during term time) is spent in the library and then in bed. Ohhhh what an exciting life!! It might not be all that exciting but I enjoy it :)

Despite being a person who likes to be on their own, if I spend too much time on my own then that is not good. My thoughts become very loud, I feel lazy, I feel like I never do enough and that I should constantly be doing things even though I know that I do more than most on one of my 'lazy days'. This feeling has begun to creep up on my during this time in limbo between exams finishing, 3rd year lectures beginning and summer.

If you haven't guessed it already I suffer from anxiety. I guess all of us suffer from anxiety from time to time it's just that some of us get more affected than others. Since about 3 years I have been dealing with a sort of chronic anxiety which never really goes away but certainly it comes in waves. It's not the most fun thing in the world and it gets a bit tiring after a while. Somedays I feel great, these are usually the days when I am busy and doing something that I love. Other days aren't so great and these days are not fun. You could say that I'm having a bit of a down day at the moment but as soon as I am busy again and feel like I'm contributing something to society then I will be tip-top or as close to tip-top as possible.

I worry about stupid things that I won't bore you with here and the annoying thing is that deep down I know that there is no need to worry which frustrates me even more. I am currently making a conscious decision to concentrate on the positives in life and see how far I have come rather than how far I have left to go. I am learning not to compare myself with others because this really gets me down and makes me very critical of myself. I yearn to live a simple life and not get bogged down with little trivial worthless issues which we all seem to obsess over. I want to just be happy. That is my single goal in life, well I have two goals in life - to be happy and healthy. Isn't that what life is all about at the end of the day?

I am running the Cardiff Half Marathon on October 5th in name of MIND, the mental health charity. If you would like to donate here is my Virgin Money Giving page. Thank You.