Results of Operation Morning person Day #1
I have a few observations to share and while I think all of these were important elements to making this process a whole lot easier than I ever imagined, wait until you see how EASY it was to implement.
The first thing I did was make a little plan the night before of what I was going to do first thing in the AM. That way I wasn’t wasting time trying to figure out what I should do while my brain was still sleeping.
THE PLAN
- Get up without snoozing when my alarm goes off at 7am (and by get up, I mean quietly lay in bed for a few minutes before rolling out)
- Put cozy workout clothes on
- Drink as much water as seems good (at least a glass, maybe more)
- Do an easy, gentle morning ‘workout’ to move my body and create some happy endorphins within 30 minutes of rolling out of bed
- Have breakfast
- Shower
THE REALITY
I was really pleasantly surprised to see that the plan actually worked. I was excited to put my cozy clothes on (who doesn’t love cozy yoga pants, t-shirt, and hoodie on a cold morning?) and found myself looking forward to the gentle exercise I had planned.
I managed to drink an entire quart of water. Half before the workout, half during. I followed that up with a second quart during the rest of the morning so by 8am, I already had two quarts in me. YAY! (I swear my skin feels younger and softer already).
Where things went a little sideways…
It turns out that while I thought I’d cued up an easy wake up workout (it’s called rise + shine), I’d actually loaded something quite a bit more intense. Like sweating, heavy breathing, “are we done yet?!” intense. Whoops. I realized my mistake really early on and decided I could either lose my momentum and try to find the one I thought I was doing or just suck it up and keep going. I kept going. (It was totally, 100% absolutely worth it. I feel INCREDIBLE today!).
THE RESULTS
After breakfast, I took a few minutes to journal how I was feeling because I didn’t want to EVER forget how awesome a morning it was. Here’s what I wrote:
- My skin feels radiant
- I feel like I’m rebuilding my body and it feels SO.GOOD.
- I feel AMAZING (underscored-TWICE)
- BEST.MORNING.EVER
- I feel SO.GOOD. I can’t overstate that.
- I feel LIGHT, ENERGIZED, CREATIVE, and most of all CLEAR. The fog I normally feel is GONE.
- I feel so CALM. It’s absolutely LOVELY.
- I feel so incredibly clear.
See anything in common? I think I feel really good today, what do you think? I can’t believe this is the result of a SINGLE early morning. I’m ready for hundreds more after this!
I was surprised to find that, unlike in the afternoon, I didn’t really need much motivation to get things done. They just seemed to happen. I don’t know if that’s because I was too tired to think or if it has to do with the fact that motivation and will power are finite resources. I have a full tank of willpower available first thing in the morning so it’s very possible that’s the answer.
THE SECRET
I know, you’ve been waiting this entire time to find out what the secret is and I promise it’s a good one. One I haven’t seen ANYWHERE in my research and reading on this idea of becoming a morning person.
It’s so good and simple and will change your life-and you barely have to lift a finger. You’ll get up naturally and totally be shocked. I was!
This little trick is going to rock your world.
READY?!
TURN UP THE HEAT.
No joke. Using my not so fancy programmable thermostat (I dream of a nest but for now, it’s just a good old button programmable thermostat), I set the furnace to tick up 5 extra degrees 30 minutes before my alarm.
We keep our furnace set at 62 at night (I love it cool when I sleep) so that means I set it to go up to 67 at 6:30am.
I expected to get a slow, gentle wake up as the heat rose and made it impossible to sleep any longer. What I didn’t expect was that it would happen within a few minutes of the furnace turning on.
That’s right, this night owl was up at 6:32am to tell the furnace to cool it before I melted. Turns out, just 3 degrees is enough to pull me out of bed.
Now before you go thinking that I must have gone to bed early or have some other magic, I have to tell you that last night was crappy and I didn’t sleep well at all.
I went to bed at my usual time (around 12:30am) and tossed and turned for a while, ideas and worries clouding my mind. Around 2am, I was wide awake because the cats were playing with something. I was awake again at 4:30am when my husbands alarm went off (which normally I never even hear) because the cats were again chasing something.
See? Hardly the best night to start a new early morning thing with.
I did it anyway. I think you can too.
If you decide to give this a try, report back with your experience-I want to know how it worked for you so share in the comments!
Oh-and since this was day 1, I’m eager to see what day 2 brings. Mostly I’m anxious to know: will it work again? Will this whole thing last? Only time will tell! I’ll be sharing each day for the next 4 days so check back and see how it’s going.
