A Midnight Snack

Imagine just about any day you could have, a good one, a bad one, a “so-so” one, you could even imagine today. You wake up in the morning and begin to possibly get ready for work, maybe relax for the day, or even just have personal plans ahead of you. Most of us somewhere in there include breakfast. Well, after this, we simply continue to the rest of the morning, it’s almost as if breakfast is a waypoint or a staple time in the morning. Once you have hit it, you begin progressing to the next stages of the day.

Soon, we tackle some more of the day’s errands. At work, we might find whether the environment feels light and easy, or heavy and moody. Co-workers may be having one of those days, and it could seep into our own, or we could be the co-worker bleeding into others’ days. Or maybe we are just out in public having an amazing day, or maybe the cashier at the gas station seemed to have this bad attitude that hit us like a freight train. Either way, wherever we might be, we are trying to make it to the next waypoint, lunch.

For most, lunch is a time, regardless of how long, to decompress from the day’s duties so far. For those who don’t have a designated time for lunch, think of the time you can find in your day for that brief bit of respite. Here we may simply take the time to ourselves and enjoy our meal, or we may use it to contact friends, family, or loved ones to check in on our day or theirs. The idea here is that lunch is used to rest for a moment, recharge some of the energy we have, and continue pushing until the next waypoint.

After lunch has expended itself, we move on to what most consider the “second half” of the day. We get back to the activities we are involved in, the work we must accomplish, or the couch that requires the presence of our caboose to continue a day of “Chilling”.

We march on through the afternoon, or for some, the morning, with the determination to get done whatever it is that requires our time. Maybe the mood from the morning has lightened up, or maybe it has gotten even heavier than before. What matters is the fact that we are still very much there and in control of how we handle those times. After we have trudged through whatever there is, however, we reach a point of completion.

We get home or to wherever our destination may be for that sacred time, supper. Here, most try and relax to the fullest. We cook a meal or wait for it to be served to us. Some sit in silence after their day, and others chat it up with whoever may be around. The big point about supper, however, is that it is supposed to be a larger placeholder until we reach that point of breakfast again. Sometimes, between 8-12 hours away, depending on the schedule, again for most.

Laid out is a healthy example of the average human’s daily food schedule. It does not fit everyone’s mold, but for the sake of consistency, it is the one we have here. Now comes the sneaky mealtime we all hear about, but not all of us participate in.

The Midnight Snack.

Now the midnight snack itself is a gray zone. For some, it is just a bit of maybe their favorite snack, for others, it can consume them into having what would be considered an entire meal again. Through time, there has been debate on whether it is a healthy behavior. The most common argument we find, however, is not so much if you should do it, but what you consume when you do it.

Are you consuming a bag of candy perhaps? Or maybe some small carrots? A bowl of your favorite sugary cereal? Or some simple soup crackers? The options are endless here; fill in the blank for yourself. And then comes the third option, avoiding it altogether. If we cannot choose the healthy snack or tend to go for the unhealthy option, it would be best to avoid it altogether.

The argument can be made that we can make unhealthy choices for the other mealtimes as well, but history shows we are less likely to do so because we still must operate throughout our day.

The midnight snack is a middle circle activity for some. Breakfast is a middle circle activity for others; the same goes for lunch and dinner as well.

The point being made here is that there are multiple times we must choose what we are going to consume. Are we going for vegetables and meat? Or sugar and sweets. The vegetables and meat are going to provide our bodies with healthier, longer-lasting energy. Sugar will provide us with a brief high, soon followed by the devastating crash.

If you have not guessed it yet, this is our walk with addiction. We have multiple chances throughout the day to get it right. Some of the times are more enticing than others to get it wrong, however. At midnight, most will suffer from the “Tired” part of the “HALT” acronym. That is “Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired”. Some may hit all four of these triggers at that time. But a big help when we are faced with the choice of the midnight snack is whether or not we provided ourselves with strong energy throughout our day. This can influence how well we resist a midnight snack.

Did we go through work with an encouraging podcast in one ear? Maybe worship music in our home? Or did we take the time to remove isolation and reach out to a friend with any temptations? Did we burn the right kind of energy that will work long into the night, or have we just consumed what leads to big flare-ups and even bigger let-downs. Doom scrolling, foul talking, negative mindsets, lack of connection with our peers.

We must all take this as a personal inventory of ourselves. Go to the garden and not the candy shop. It will change your world.

Gaven F, a grateful believer in Jesus Christ, striving for moral and sexual purity.

And as a friend has said in the past, “Take what you like, and leave the rest”.