How do you normally feel when you wake up in the morning? Do you find it especially hard to get up when you need to? Do you wake feeling lethargic and groggy, wishing you could just go back to sleep? When you actually crawl out of bed, do you get out feeling tired, restless, worn-out, exhausted, stressed, even mad at the world? Do you look at the upcoming day with anxiety and fear?
I’m willing to bet you’ve experienced on many occasions the effects of not having enough time to prepare for work once you’ve managed to get out of bed. Does this sound familiar? The alarm clock sounds, eventually waking you up, but over and over you hit the snooze button turning it off. Under the control of that early morning brain fog, you slowly think about whether or not you should actually get up. Your internal dialogue sounds something like this: ‘It’s lovely and warm under this duvet. If I get up, it’s going to be freezing cold. That won’t be nice at all. I know I really should get up now. I don’t have to get up right this minute, do I? I can just stay here for another five minutes or so. I won’t be too far behind my necessary schedule if I don’t get up right now.’ And this scenario goes on and on, until you eventually roll out of bed at the last possible moment. Then you face a mad panic to get out the door.
Is this your daily awakening routine? When you get up like this, how much energy does it give you for the rest of the day?
Have you ever noticed that when your morning gets of to a bad start, everything just seems to go downhill from there! Throughout the day your mood is negative, you lose control of your healthy eating intentions and end up eating more food and making wrong choices, much of it high sugar and of course the day feels like a battle, going from one confrontation to another! There are days where you just stay lying in bed in the morning thinking and worrying about the day ahead, other days you are getting up and rushing round like a headless chicken trying to get a week’s worth of things done in just a day, trying to make everybody happy. Both of these actions have a tendency to start the day on a bad footing, and never seems to get better.
Our fast-paced lives often mean we are burning the candle at both ends. Most of the time, we go to bed too late and hit the snooze button all morning, leaving just enough time to dash to work or school. Did you know that experts are finding that sleep deprivation could be linked to obesity, hypertension, diabetes, stroke, depression and heart attacks? Any wonder why there seems to be such an increase in all these health problems.
Most of us wake up thinking about how we are going to meet obligations and fulfill promises to other people. We begin our day in response mode and remain that way until it’s time to go to bed. This is not the recipe to make a really great day. This morning power up session, is you time, it’s not for anyone else. This is the time where you come first.
That may be a new concept for some of you. Having worked in Ladies only gyms for quite a while, it never ceases to amaze me, how so many women put others ahead of themselves. First they are mothers, wives, daughters, domestic engineers, employees and friends. They never have time for themselves.
The worst possible way to start your morning, is to wake up to the sound of your alarm, where after a short time of trying to ignore it, hoping that it will stop of its own volition, you move the necessary muscles to reach across and turn it off, allowing yourself to drift back to sleep, having allowed your inner dialogue to convince you there truly was no need to get out of bed.
Another way, is at 7:00 am your alarm screams into action, those annoying radio broadcasters on the breakfast shows talking rubbish into your ear, waking you up, you pull yourself out of your warm, comforting bed, climb into the shower, get dressed, then turn your attention to the kids, before leaving for work at 7:45am, grabbing a take-away coffee on the way, arriving at work by 8;15am, and jumping straight into your work by 8:30am. Probably taking a quick break at 9:00 to make yourself your next coffee, already being in need of a caffeine kick.
Having an ice cold bucket of water thrown over you in the morning. Setting three alarm clocks positioned out of reach around your bedroom. Using a ladder to place an alarm clock on top of your wardrobe, and then taking the ladder out of your bedroom before retiring to bed. Having your mum call you every morning seems a very common solution many people use.
Removing the duvet from my daughters bed, has always proved a workable solution to get her out of bad in double quick time, as does allowing my Collie to enter her bedroom, and jump on her bed and lick her face until again she bolts out of bed.
As effective as some of these methods may be, they are not conducive to powering up your morning.
So it’s time you created for yourself a perfect start to your morning. Tommorow I’ll tell you my suggestion.
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I’m a relatively ‘easy’ waker Larry…what I mean is you just have to whisper my name and I’m up and moving 🙂 I have gotten into the habit of setting my alarm 1/2 hour earlier than I need to wake up so that I can hit the snooze button four times. Yes, four times. My OCD is shining through LOL. When I do get up, I feel like I have stolen and extra 1/2 hour and feel great 🙂
I really believe that when you like to make your day beautiful, you have to start your morning with a great smile. As I woke as early as 4am, I drink a glass of milk and have an hour of walk around the village. After a walk I feel so energetic and ready to go to work.