A Note on “Science” (In My Own Way)

A daily routine might look like a simple behavioral choice, waking up at a set time, eating meals on schedule, working in a co-working space, but its implications reach deeply into biology, psychology, and even long-term health outcomes. From what I understand in a more instinctive, everyday way rather than from any formal scientific inquiry, routine is not merely about discipline, but a way of aligning my human behavior with my body’s internal systems, especially as it expects regularity in the usual environment.

Retirement and the Loss of Routine

My first real problem in retirement is routine. Suddenly, waking up is puzzling, and each hour becomes a hurdle of whatnots, because nothing has been established yet. My circadian rhythm, this rough 24-hour internal clock that regulates my sleep, hormone release, metabolism, and cognitive performance, has become central in my thoughts. How I will time a new system, get reacquainted with my biological clock via external cues like sunlight and humidity. I am trying to focus on my consistent behavior.

I had a regular routine, sleeping and waking at the same time, eating meals predictably, and walking to the MRT, taking the train to the university, stopping by at the library, preparing my lessons, teach, repeat. This was a stable routine for many years.

When Routine Starts to Break Down

But as the routine has gotten rotten and ‘predictable,’ my sleep has gotten worse and unmanageable. My alertness has suffered, teaching has relaxed, my waking hours too foggy for excellent lectures. So the regularity has disrupted my ‘circadian rhythm.’

Now the absence of routine once more threatens to dismantle the circadian alignment, and instead of rest, I have fatigue, forgetfulness, and due to laziness and boredom, more hormonal imbalance, high blood pressure, and vertigo.

So much for retirement.

Building a New Routine Again

But I guess the answer to a non-routine is precisely that, a NEW routine, so I will have a more efficient brain. My critical faculties cannot suffer, my thinking cannot deteriorate, my imagination has to fight this lethargy. Habit formation is my cure. I need to find actions that I will repeat and repeat day after day, to encode them in my neural pathways.

As the basal ganglia allows routine behaviors to become automatic, my cognitive load will be reduced, and I will be free for complex problem-solving, creativity, and decision-making. Routine to free me, routine to enable, routine to energize.

Psychological Stability Through Predictability

Psychologically I should have better emotional responses to situations if routine is in place. Predictability provides a sense of control, which is crucial in managing my anxiety. When I know what to expect from my day, my brain will perceive fewer threats, my cortisol released.

I have a relaxing environment, but I can’t let the calm produce uncertain moments. I need stimulation, a structured routine, to buffer the lay-by, so I can sit down in an actual calm, and productive ground. This means new learning for me, new skills, new memories. Studying, maybe, or practicing a new trade, or insisting on a daily reading guide, anything to not let time pass by unintentionally, is my temporal conditioning, for focus and efficiency. Over time, this routine itself will prime for optimal performance. An expansion.

Designing a Flexible Daily Structure

So how and what daily routine shall apply each day? This should take very good care of my body as well, improving well-being. Routine for regular, healthy eating, walking, devotion and meditation, writing, reading, studying, the usual, but new, since I will be doing them without the regulation of employment. Being old has the best advantage here, routine is entirely in my hands. So I can be flexible (does this mean the routine can be regularly broken, then, how will it still be a routine?) I can be consistent in inconsistency and nobody will mind. This only means establishing a most beneficial routine, one that is structured but adaptable. Meanwhile, I still have the advantage of regularity, while not resisting stressfully unexpected irregularities.

Routine as a Scaffold for Living

The routine will be my scaffold so I can function more humanly, robotic AI can’t be my final answer. My biological rhythms need an upgrade, my hormonal imbalances need stability. And I need to conserve my thinking capacity, that is, overthinking happens in lazy hours, actually, so better fill the hour with creative endeavors. This routine shall ground my emotions, and promote a calmer, gentler, more graceful ageing.

The routine then is my final answer for optimizing me.