I spent most of last week home sick, racking up what I am pretty sure are my record number of consequtive sick days. I have been fortunate to not need to use sick days very often, and when I have, things must have tended to break out late in the week, giving me the weekend to recover.
The rest was clearly needed. I was not epically ill physically, but my mental energy was gone to a surprising degree. I did watch one 40-minute Youtube clip, but not a single movie or TV episode. Catching up on Mastodon and the odd podcast episode (which I usually nodded off to and could re-listen to large sections) was just about what I could do well. And I felt completely fine not doing more, either. Even when I recovered enough to be able to sit in front of a computer for a while without discomfort, my mind could not work up the energy to focus on anything for too long.
But it was completely fine, because my mind also did not really want to do anything in particular. It was rest mode all the way. I played perhaps fifteen minutes of Super Mario wonder one evening and felt like "Okay, that filled up the brain completely! Time to lie down a bit."
This week, I feel mostly back to normal. Keeping from exercise a while longer feels completely right, but everyday activity is no problem. But my mental energy is still, I think, clearly lower too. Sure, it could be the fact that we are still in the middle of the darkest part of winter, but I feel work brings me to nap-mode much faster than usual. And even with frequent breaks, I feel more like lying down on the couch at the end of the work day than doing pretty much anything else.
Energy levels are interesting things.
Tomorrow, we mix things up by going to the office. Good times!
(I have not had any coffee for more than a week, either. Lots of tea, though. I am waiting for the right moment and the right cup before starting again. The real urge is not just there, thinking about a cup does not have that really nice appeal yet. So I will wait a bit longer and enjoy that feeling of somehow feeling a little … cleaner(?) than usual.)