Lately, I’ve been trying to rid my life of any and all hate, starting with my severe aversion to mornings. As a writer, I am pulling you, dear reader, into this making-amends-with-mornings journey. I’ve been building a new early morning routine over the last couple of weeks, and it turns out they’re really not so horrific after all… in fact, I have discovered there is a whole new, beautiful world that exists before 6:30 a.m. (*cue Disney music*).
At the bud of a new day, the birds are cheerfully chirping, the morning dew reflects the sunrise, and mother earth is coffee-scented. As the night gets a little brighter, the day has not had ample time to take on the traits of whatever may make it a good day or awful day. The day just is in the morning (I’m pretty sure unicorns exist at this time).
The universe has had this trick up its sleeve all along, and I never knew. It has provided us with Dawn – the most simple, genuine, and majestic friend I’ve yet to meet. Dawn is a friend that serves us up a clean slate with every new day. No work, no grudges, no attachment, guilt, or judgment.
I am just now learning how to shimmy past the way I physically feel in the morning toward embracing Dawn’s lovely qualities. Before diving into the six “tricks” I’ve uncovered to make mornings easier, I will say that becoming a morning person truly begins with simply setting the intention to become a morning person… and thinking of mornings as a daily gift.
1. Spend the first hour of your morning without technology.
Letting go of my smart phone and computer first thing in the morning has been a major factor in overcoming the a.m. “UGHHH” factor. Work toward severing the association your mind has drawn between morning, work, and social connectedness by keeping your technology tucked away when you wake up. Take time to simply be you while the day just is. This allows us to think of mornings as something other than a “to-do” that creates a growth environment for scattered thoughts and prepares us for rushing out the door to work. When we allow ourselves to disconnect from technology, we can draw our focus inward and associate mornings with the much needed, refreshing “me time” that falls through the cracks for so many of us.
2. Toss out your old, irritating alarm clock.
Favor the modern era’s contributions, ladies and gentlemen! Let SleepCycle wake you. Words cannot describe how much this app has changed my mornings. As described by the app creators, “a fixed alarm clock is a lottery. If you are lucky, it wakes you in a light sleep. If you are unlucky, you are in a deep sleep and barely conscious.”
Through use of the iPhone’s accelerometer, SleepCycle senses movement during sleep, tracks your R.E.M. cycle, and knows to wake you during your lightest possible sleep. Essentially, it takes the lethargy out of mornings, allows you to nerd-out looking at the fun sleep graphs, and replaces terrifying alarm clock sounds with pretty instrumentals.
3. Make lemon water your new BFF.
Who knew there were so many health benefits to drinking warm water with lemon first thing in the morning? According to Vixi, drinking this concoction in the morning can boost your immune system, balance your pH levels, help with weight loss, aid digestion, detoxify your body, clear skin, and hydrate the immune system. Additionally, I find coffee upsets my stomach when I drink it before my morning workout. Lemon water doesn’t! What’s not to love? Here's an added bonus: it happens to be the easiest recipe ever:
• 1 cup warm (not hot) water
• Juice from ½ a lemon
Note: Drink lemon water through a straw – the acidity in lemon can be bad for tooth enamel.
4. Begin your day with yoga.
Filling the morning with breath and light is incredibly refreshing. Choose to make your mat your morning home. Adding a yoga class, even if it’s an online class, leaves me feeling like I can tackle the issues of the entire world in the day ahead. Try Erin Motz’s no-sweat morning yoga for an easy introduction to break-of-day yoga. If you reside in LA and are seeking a challenge, then beast-moders, unite! See you at Laura Conley's YogaWorks Vinyasa class, Tuesday/Thursday at 6:15 a.m.
5. Avoid red meat at night.
I noticed during my yoga teacher training, when I had to be up at the a**-crack of dawn, that eating red meat the night prior to a very early morning made me feel like a beached whale during my yoga practice. Even in the initial getting out of bed process, the hard-to-digest qualities of red meat turned a potentially light and happy morning into a lethargic mess. I’ve learned that simply avoiding red meat with your dinner the night prior makes mornings feel brighter and workouts more graceful.
6. Don’t cheat yourself of the rest YOU need.
I challenge you to study yourself. Are you a person that feels like a million bucks after a full 6 hours? 7 hours? Or 9 hours? Trust that number, and stick to it! Personally, I’m a must-have-8-hours person. Bad things happen when I don’t get my rest… rainbows and lollipops get traded in for road rage and a chocolate overdose. Calculate the amount of time you need to get to bed in order to wake up feeling full of beauty rest and positive energy.
©Emily Hudson
At the bud of a new day, the birds are cheerfully chirping, the morning dew reflects the sunrise, and mother earth is coffee-scented. As the night gets a little brighter, the day has not had ample time to take on the traits of whatever may make it a good day or awful day. The day just is in the morning (I’m pretty sure unicorns exist at this time).
The universe has had this trick up its sleeve all along, and I never knew. It has provided us with Dawn – the most simple, genuine, and majestic friend I’ve yet to meet. Dawn is a friend that serves us up a clean slate with every new day. No work, no grudges, no attachment, guilt, or judgment.
I am just now learning how to shimmy past the way I physically feel in the morning toward embracing Dawn’s lovely qualities. Before diving into the six “tricks” I’ve uncovered to make mornings easier, I will say that becoming a morning person truly begins with simply setting the intention to become a morning person… and thinking of mornings as a daily gift.
1. Spend the first hour of your morning without technology.
Letting go of my smart phone and computer first thing in the morning has been a major factor in overcoming the a.m. “UGHHH” factor. Work toward severing the association your mind has drawn between morning, work, and social connectedness by keeping your technology tucked away when you wake up. Take time to simply be you while the day just is. This allows us to think of mornings as something other than a “to-do” that creates a growth environment for scattered thoughts and prepares us for rushing out the door to work. When we allow ourselves to disconnect from technology, we can draw our focus inward and associate mornings with the much needed, refreshing “me time” that falls through the cracks for so many of us.
2. Toss out your old, irritating alarm clock.
Favor the modern era’s contributions, ladies and gentlemen! Let SleepCycle wake you. Words cannot describe how much this app has changed my mornings. As described by the app creators, “a fixed alarm clock is a lottery. If you are lucky, it wakes you in a light sleep. If you are unlucky, you are in a deep sleep and barely conscious.”
Through use of the iPhone’s accelerometer, SleepCycle senses movement during sleep, tracks your R.E.M. cycle, and knows to wake you during your lightest possible sleep. Essentially, it takes the lethargy out of mornings, allows you to nerd-out looking at the fun sleep graphs, and replaces terrifying alarm clock sounds with pretty instrumentals.
3. Make lemon water your new BFF.
Who knew there were so many health benefits to drinking warm water with lemon first thing in the morning? According to Vixi, drinking this concoction in the morning can boost your immune system, balance your pH levels, help with weight loss, aid digestion, detoxify your body, clear skin, and hydrate the immune system. Additionally, I find coffee upsets my stomach when I drink it before my morning workout. Lemon water doesn’t! What’s not to love? Here's an added bonus: it happens to be the easiest recipe ever:
• 1 cup warm (not hot) water
• Juice from ½ a lemon
Note: Drink lemon water through a straw – the acidity in lemon can be bad for tooth enamel.
4. Begin your day with yoga.
Filling the morning with breath and light is incredibly refreshing. Choose to make your mat your morning home. Adding a yoga class, even if it’s an online class, leaves me feeling like I can tackle the issues of the entire world in the day ahead. Try Erin Motz’s no-sweat morning yoga for an easy introduction to break-of-day yoga. If you reside in LA and are seeking a challenge, then beast-moders, unite! See you at Laura Conley's YogaWorks Vinyasa class, Tuesday/Thursday at 6:15 a.m.
5. Avoid red meat at night.
I noticed during my yoga teacher training, when I had to be up at the a**-crack of dawn, that eating red meat the night prior to a very early morning made me feel like a beached whale during my yoga practice. Even in the initial getting out of bed process, the hard-to-digest qualities of red meat turned a potentially light and happy morning into a lethargic mess. I’ve learned that simply avoiding red meat with your dinner the night prior makes mornings feel brighter and workouts more graceful.
6. Don’t cheat yourself of the rest YOU need.
I challenge you to study yourself. Are you a person that feels like a million bucks after a full 6 hours? 7 hours? Or 9 hours? Trust that number, and stick to it! Personally, I’m a must-have-8-hours person. Bad things happen when I don’t get my rest… rainbows and lollipops get traded in for road rage and a chocolate overdose. Calculate the amount of time you need to get to bed in order to wake up feeling full of beauty rest and positive energy.
©Emily Hudson
