Creating a Morning Routine

One of my New Year's goals for this month was to create a morning routine that will help me wake up and feel refreshed at the ungodly hour of 7am. I am NOT a morning person, so waking up anytime before 9am feels like torture to me. I did some research and came up with a few things to do upon waking that will help me to feel like a human being faster, and hopefully start the day out right.

Right after waking up, I take 5 really deep breaths. Then, I get out of bed and stretch like I'm warming up for a workout (except, instead of a workout, it's a full day of sitting). Then I do a few push ups, squats, and sit ups, just to get the blood moving. By that time, I'm feeling quite a bit more awake. While I'm brushing my hair and putting makeup, I smile at myself in the mirror (they say that smiling, even if it's fake, can induce real happiness), and say a bunch of platitudes to myself like, Today will be great! You are awesome!

I also make sure to eat a healthy breakfast, as well as drink a bunch of water. I've read that a full cup or more is best, but sometimes I just can't force myself to drink that much that early. I've also started drinking less coffee. I only usually drank two cups a day, but now I'm down to one that I nurse throughout the day.

I'm working on a night routine, too, though it's not quite as involved as my morning one. I make sure to turn off my computer at 10pm (pesky blue light that it emits suppresses your melatonin, which keeps you from sleeping soundly later on). And then, I read for about an hour before I start on my 8 hour sleep. I read an article that said that, during your 7-8 hours of sleep, your brain releases toxins (basically protein that builds up in your brain cells while you're awake) that will otherwise cause you to feel crappy, which is why you feel awful when you haven't had enough sleep - your brain's still all clogged up with junk.

The true test of my routine came this morning. I've been sleeping pretty well all this week, doing my routine and feeling better than usual. This morning, however, I woke up after sleeping fairly poorly. I did my routine as usual, and I actually feel pretty okay today - not nearly as crappy as I would normally be. I think my routine is turning out to be a success!!