Thursday Thoughts - Cold Water in the Face

Last weekend (Friday into Saturday) I stayed over at work as we were working on a major project to replace the UPS in our main data center.  This required work to shut down all the equipment in the room and cut power to everything, so the old UPS could be removed, a new UPS installed, and all the power work that went with that.

A little after midnight I headed to a quiet space to try to get some sleep.  As always with a strange place it is hard to get sleep.  Every time I got comfortable I had to get up for one reason or another.  And I got locked out of where I was sleeping in 2 different ways which kept me from going back to sleep.  I didn't get much sleep even though I wasn't in the work space for several hours.

When I finally decided I had enough of trying to sleep, I went into one of the bathrooms, got changed, and did what I usually do to the best of my abilities to get ready in the morning.  But I added a step - I splashed some cold water on my face.

How it felt after splashing cold water on my face - like a bright day.

It is amazing how much more awake and alert I felt after doing that.  And brushing my teeth.  It was almost like I was a new person.  Sometimes when I get really upset and have a fit of crying, I'm told to wash my face with cold water, or put cold water on my face.  I usually never listen to that advice.  But now I understand why.

For some reason, though warm water is better to clean with, cold water on the face just really wakes you up, makes you more alert, and refreshes you.  

I'm a huge coffee in the morning person and typically can't really get going until I have coffee, tea, or something with caffeine.  But this particular morning, though I did have some nice hot tea later on, the thing I needed to wake up was the nice cold water.

Thinking back now, maybe later in the day I should have done the same thing when I started to slow down.  And maybe I'll remember that for next time (if there is a next time).

But any time I need to refresh myself, I think I'll try the cold water first before moving on to multiple cups of coffee.