The Mind is a Pokemon
There's a convention in some kinds of RPG-type video games where characters can learn different skills or moves but only have a relatively low limit on how many different ones they can choose from a list, no matter how advanced or experienced they become.
Sometimes it's a question of "slots", like in the video game Hades where Zagreus can have multiple boons but only one tied to each of his basic moves: one for normal attacks, one for special attacks, one for dash attacks, etc.
And sometimes it's a set number, with the classic example being Pokemon, where each species of pocket-sized monster can have an extensive list of moves it can master but the game will tell you if it already knows just four of them and make you choose one to forget if you insist on teaching it a fifth one.
I haven't played much of the Pokemon series and so am mainly familiar with this trope in the games from pop culture osmosis, but it's been popping into my head quite a bit as I navigate the rising heat and my declining ability to deal with it.
It was only back in May that I started playing with light color/temperature and my circadian rhythm to improve my sleep habits at night; using F.Lux on my computer, setting my office lights to turn red late at night, wearing blue-light blocking lenses, etc.
It's possible that some of the results of that was more a mix of Pavlov and placebo than anything having to do with brains and biology, as I created a series of visual cues for myself that helped signal "The day is ending, time to be thinking about bed." in a life that doesn't have much else to signal the passage of time or divide up a 24 hour day into segments... but however it worked, it did work, and it worked well, basically getting my insomnia to be the most manageable it had been in years.
Then summer got warmer and I started dealing with dehydration and loss of appetite from the heat, which created a spiral where I didn't have the energy to deal with the things that were causing my lack of energy. I needed to address that. Hydration was something I know how to handle, when I'm thinking about it, so I canvassed for opinions and options for getting more protein and calories in the day even when everything felt sweaty and blah, and the internet came through.
And in fact, in consciously adjusting my eating habits, I found a couple of minor health issues I had assumed were just par for course with my body have been seriously mitigated.
But a couple of weeks into this nutritional renaissance, I realized I was getting tired again, and also that I wasn't sleeping well, and it hit me that somewhere between when I had started extensively hydrating and when I went on my protein regimen, I had forgotten all about the circadian lighting tricks and other parts of my bedtime routine that had sprung up around the same time.
And in that moment, my mind flashed back through the equivalent of a vast telescoping montage of all the times I have changed something in my life in order to improve it and it worked great and then I needed to change something else and so I forgot about the previous change, only to maybe rediscover it two or three more times as the problem it had addressed became critical again.
I related this to my boyfriend and told him that I felt like a Pokemon trying to learn new moves past the fourth one. His response was "Welcome to ADHD hyperfocus," which was an insight that surprised me -- I'm used to thinking of hyperfocus in terms of interests like video games -- and is probably more helpful than a metaphor born out of frustration.
I've re-added the lighting cues to my script for the day as of last night, and I'm hoping that doing so while I'm conscious of the peril of letting other new habits slip will mitigate it. And I know, intellectually, that new habits take time to cement themselves and it would probably be best to focus on one and keep focusing on it until it's fully-formed and all but automatic... but I guess if I could pick and choose when my life's issues need addressing, I wouldn't need to find ways to address them.