Keeping an eye on our health through a daily log and maximising the many choices we make each day can have tremendous impact on our quality of life. I firmly believe that we have the power to impact our life, dramatically, with each little choice.
Succinctly, Why Do I Keep a Daily Log?
Aka what are the benefits?
- Knowing the longer term patterns
- Ensuring the things I am trying are working
- Knowing what doesn’t help
- To help me communicate with my medical team
In short, to help me target my treatments (so I don’t waste money on the things that don’t work) to improve as much as possible.
What I Track in my Daily Log
Tracking experiments – like diets, new supplements or medicines and the like – are a good time to take note of what is going on. You want to be sure things are tracking upwards.
Even though I’m not actively logging my Low Dose Naltrexone experiment any longer (please see my Etsy store for my How to Choose a Treatment Option with template for experiments), I keep track of a few key details.
Namely: Sleep hours and quality, three key symptoms (neck, back and fatigue), medicine/supplements, exercise and self-care.
By jotting down quick notes each day, I can see patterns arise and continue the good ones and work on the bad ones.
I believe self-efficacy is vital in managing pervasive symptoms like pain and fatigue. I also believe we are our own best advocate. And with brain fog as a likely issue, we need to write things down. This also helps us when we are seeking help from our health professionals.
What are our Options for Daily Tracking?
You can scribble notes in a journal, make a bullet journal or try a template.
I created several templates for my Etsy shop, variations of what I use myself: apricot two to a page, a daily log with food tracker, apricot full page, log with weekly chart, with additional symptoms and a notes section.
You can print them out and put them in a pretty binder or punch a hole and tie ribbon. Or the apricot ones will fit in an existing A5 planner. They are all designed to be flexible – print to the ratio that suits, A4, A5 or letter size. Full colour or greyscale.
You might also like to look into bullet journals. I find the setting up of the sections a bit too time consuming, but if you are creative and enjoy doing that – a simple Google search will equip you with ideas – and there are a lot.
I created a health and habits bullet style tracker as well – this gives you the space to track the things that matter to you in addition to those simple healthy habits to help us in our wellness journey. You can cut them out and paste them into your bullet diary too. The thing I love about this is that you can track more than just symptoms so easily.
Some of the healthy habits you could track include:
- Water intake
- Fruit and vegetable intake
- Exercise
- Meditation
- Rest
- Taking breaks
- Getting to bed at your designated time
- Self-massage
However you choose to do it, I would encourage you to keep track of your key symptoms in order to help you manage this beast.
More about fighting Fibromyalgia:
What Works Now 2019
Free Printables from Melissa vs Fibromyalgia Book
Simple, sustainable changes workbook – including the four weeks healthy habit challenge
Spoonie Gifts – Birthday, Christmas, Anniversary? What to get a Friend with Fibromyalgia
My Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN) for Fibromyalgia One Year Experiment
My Video: How Tracking Symptoms Helps me Fight Fibromyalgia
I’d love to hear if you track your health and how it works for you.
If you’d like more information:
