64 Pulls 87 Breaks

Yesterday I had 64 Pulls & 87 breaks.  I am pretty dissappointed in these numbers since

I was on track to have a very stellar day, then a couple factors came into play that really took my numbers to the next level.

May 23rd Pulls

Yesterday was my first attempt at writing each pull or break before I put it into the bag.  It seriously saved me a ton of time this morning, which if only for that reason is worth it, but I really felt the benefit of doing this.  For the pull side, I wrote out the numbers and for the breaks, I began doing individual 'ticks', to see if I found any difference between the two psychologically and by the 12th or 13th tick on the break side, I knew I needed to see a number.  I am definitely going to continue with this method of tracking since it was also good because if I accidentally threw a hair about out of habit, it would register and I would be able to still account for it.

Pull Tracking Page
(Not an ad for Monte Carlo Inns...Only piece of paper I had)

As you can see above, I pulled 64 hairs. Throughout the day I did such a good job of tracking each one at a time, but then you will notice near the end the numbers start to jump several at a time. I was at 29 pulls at 5:30pm, a far cry from 80 I had likely pulled the day before at this time. I was feeling VERY good about the days progress & felt I would manage to stay under 40 pulls, but that changed in a hurry. The red pen indicated when I got into the car for the evenings events (not strategically, I only had a red pen). We had to drive about 40 minutes to pick up a washer & dryer, then from there another 30 minutes to hubby's baseball game, then I had an hour of sitting & reading in the car while they warmed up. In the span of less 3 hours, I pulled 34 hours which is more than I pulled in the 8 hours prior.

As I have always known, being in the car is a real problem for me, but the last major jump happened in the hour that I was left alone in the car to read.  Oh mylanta.  With all my mind power, I COULD NOT stop.   The second I began reading my hands would immediately find my head & the worse part was majority of the time while I was reading it was pulls & not breaks.  I am not sure of the correlation, but I am now determined to find some kind of solution for when I am reading.  At home, I can resort to my hoodie, but in this situation of reading in public, I am not sure what to do.

Break Tracking Page

My breaks still continue to be a struggle, but as you can see, the majority of breaks actually happened during the day and only 27 happened after starting my evening based on the red pen.  The problem with breaking is it still keeps me in the habit of playing with my hair which is really the root of the problem (no pun intended!).  I need to work just as much on reducing the breaks & if I do this, I know my pull numbers will be positively impacted.

I think I am on the right track here, and honestly, if I had an evening where I stayed in & was able to wear a hoodie, I know my pulls would have been under 40 & my breaks under 70, but that wasn't the case, so I have to continue to work on the car & reading situation.

One big thing I noticed yesterday, there was probably 7-10 times where I was on the verge of breaking a hair, I felt it about to go & my mind was aware and I was able to resist the urge to break it, even though I knew it was right there, ready to break.  This may seem little to some, but for me, having my mind recognize and resist that moment is something new.  My numbers would have been much closer to 100 if I had followed through with those breaks.

This evening we have another baseball game, this time an hour drive from home, and I will have that hour of sitting in the car reading again.  I am going to come up with something so my pulls or breaks during that hour do not spiral out of control, or even happen.