Need a pick up? Here’s a few ways you can make your Mon-daze brighter.One of the principles in life is that (1) I don’t trust anyone who have never cussed, and most of all, (2) I don’t trust anyone who love mornings.
Most human beings find mornings the least favourite part of the day, especially if you’ve spent the night (and morning) binge watching Netflix.
However, not getting a good nights’ rest causes stress and anxiety which wrecks your immunity. So, other than “DON’T BINGE WATCH NETFLIX IF YOU HAVE WORK AT 8AM THE NEXT DAY”, here’s a few tips in the form of song lyrics to make your mornings more tolerable.
1. A pocket full of sunshine.
And what I mean by this is to leave your curtains or blinds halfway open and get some sunlight on your face.
I’m sure many of you attribute your good sleep to the fact that it’s pitch black and silent. But in truth, natural light will send signals to your brain to slow down its production of melatonin and brings up the production of adrenaline, which helps you wake up feeling fresher and upbeat. Of course, this will also work so much better if you actually just go to bed earlier and after a while, you can finally start relying on your biological clock rather than your alarm clock.
2. Ring the alarm!…
…15 minutes earlier than when you must get up. This is something most of us do. In fact, we probably set it an hour before we must get up because the snooze button is our best friend. There’s no science to the 15-minute rule. Basically, if you take 20 minutes to check your messages, e-mails, social media etc, then set your alarm 20 minutes before you have to get up. This way, you’re mentally prepared to go about your day, and bonus; you also get sometime for yourself before you have to face the world. I personally didn’t know it was one of the things that help make mornings better, but I have been doing this and yes, if I don’t get that 10 minutes ‘phone time’ or just 5 minutes of looking up into my ceiling, thinking about my day’s checklist, I will be extremely grumpy and sleepy the entire day.
3. Stretching our your tightness…
…for 15 seconds. If aside from preparing yourself mentally, you should also prepare yourself physically. Before you even open your eyes, just lift your arm and begin stretching each finger, then move on to your hand, wrist and arm, moving to your next arm after. Continue this with your legs, neck and back before you propel yourself out of bed. Get that blood flowing, providing an extra shot of oxygen to all your tissues and get moving!
4. Boy, you make me make bad decisions.
For a truly relaxing morning, try to make any decisions you have the night before such as what to wear to work, what to eat for breakfast, etc. Once you get a routine going, stick to that. And as person who has a morning routine, let me just tell you, it’s great to not think about whether you may have forgotten something, or end up wearing the wrong attire when you have to meet a client that day. Without making ‘decisions’, I can also catch more snooze time because I don’t have to wake up earlier to look at my closet to figure out what to wear or take a while to look at my fridge to see what to eat for breakfast.
5. I am waiting at the counter for the man to pour the coffee.
For coffee drinkers, please do move on to the next point. If you have a coffee maker, you should try to wake up to the smell of coffee. Also if your coffee maker as an alarm, even better! And if you’re a massive coffee person like me, the strong scent of coffee will pull you out of bed like a fishhook. Caffeine is a central nervous system stimulant which helps you wake up and increase your muscular activity. What more, studies have shown that it improves clear-headedness, happiness, and calmness as well as their ability to perform better on attention tests, to process information and to solve problems.
6. Drink the water. Drink it down.
Of course, the key is to drink water when you’re thirsty. There’s no universal water cure and one can also die from drinking too much water. So, the key here is to just drink a regular amount of water when you’ve just woken up. The interwebz tells me that it should be 8 ounces, which is like 16 tablespoons. But I say just drink some water until you feel rehydrated again.
7. To the left, to the left. Everything you own in the box to the left.
Keep your necessaries in one place. When I first started having a routine, I figured out they key to making sure that you don’t forget anything; put all your important stuff like car keys, wallet/purse, watch, etc in one place or pretty basket if you’re a Pinterest person. After a while, you’ll realise that you usually have 5 things to grab or put on, and one day when you only have 4, you’ll naturally just know that something’s wrong. You will also save a ton of time by making sure you don’t run around your house yelling for your house keys.
8. Be running up that road. Be running up that hill. Be running up that building.
Run or jog for a bit. The internet says ‘for 30 minutes’, but who would give 30 minutes’ worth of sleep for a jog? So, I’d advice a short 5-10 minutes as studies find that people who work out in the mornings are more likely to stick with their exercise regime as they have no time to come up with an excuse not to work out. Even better, by jogging/running, you will produce more endorphins that will last most of the day.
9. Sugar, Sugar, Oh Honey, Honey.
Use real sugar in your morning drink, whether it’s coffee, tea or juice. Research at the University of Virginia have tested the memories of healthy 60 to 80 year olds have found that those who had small amounts of sugar in the morning before breakfast had better memory recall. But of course we’re talking small amount. So, put down that Red Bull.
10. Play that funky music, white boy.
Spend a couple of minutes each morning just listening to music or sitting somewhere quiet just thinking. This will help the creative thinking you did last night turn into a plan of action today. If you have no time for that, just put on some headphones on the way to work and try to empty everything around you to get your ‘quiet space’. This will also help keep your feet on the ground for the rest of the day.
11. I love- I love- I love- my calendar girl. Yeah, sweet calendar girl.
If you have a white board somewhere where you drink your coffee, that’s great. If not, just hang a nice calendar nearby your coffee-drinking spot and when you wake up and take that first sip of morning coffee, just carefully check it out and see all the activities you have for the day and the rest of the week. This will help you structure your day and the rest of your week, avoiding stressful moments where you might’ve forgotten something.
12. Kiss the girl…
…or the guy, your mom, your dad, your siblings or your fur-babies. Connecting with the ones you love soothes stress and provides you with a positive start to your day whilst also keeping you focused on what’s really important according to research.
BONUS HACK:
Emergency Fashion Trick:
Prepare an emergency outfit in your closet which includes socks, jewellery, etc (formal work attire would be advisable), so on those mornings when you’ve accidentally overslept, you can just pluck your outfit off the hanger and voila!
