This time of year the mornings are darker and colder, at least in points North, and getting out of a cozy bed gets harder. What is a working mom to do? Here are a few suggestions:
- To start the day with energy, begin the day before. Give yourself a few minutes of quiet to put the day to bed and prepare for the needs of the next day. First find one or two things from the day just lived that you are happy about. Let that satisfaction nurture your spirit. Then think of the day to come. If your to-do list causes you to hyperventilate, choose three, and only three, items off the list that if you do them you will feel good about yourself. Repeat.
- Practice good sleep hygiene. At least 30 minutes before you want to be asleep, begin your go to bed ritual. This signals to your body it's time to relax and release the sleep hormones. For more tips on how to practice good sleep hygiene click here. You know your sleep hygiene is working when you wake up before the alarm goes off!
- If you need an hour to get yourself out the door in the morning, set your alarm 30 minutes earlier. That means you need to get to bed so that you have from 7 to 8 hours rest. If you need to get up at 6:00 AM count backwards eight hours and add half an hour. That means start your sleep ritual by 9:30, be in bed by 10, at the latest! The extra time in the morning doesn't give you time to lolly gag, what it does is keep you from running around in a panic, a sure energy sucker. Try it. It's an amazing feeling to leave the house in a calm state of mind.
- Whatever age your kids are, let them take responsibility for stuff, like grooming and dressing themselves. My kids started participating in preparing their school lunches in third grade. By middle school they were making their lunches by themselves the night before!
- Sit down for breakfast and you must have breakfast.
What do you do to have the best start to the day possible?
Also, light is very biologically important to the waking ritual. Be sure to have already, or get the blinds open to let the sunlight shine in. There are primal receptors in the brain that need this light to signal the start of the day biologically, resulting in the release of chemicals in your brain that start the natural energy cycle needed for the day ahead.
Not too long ago, I purchased a book entitled, “Never check Email in the Morning” by Julie Morgenstern and I follow her tenets. Remarkably calming and I find my productivity way up! I do select the top three most important to do items and once I begin work, I complete them before checking the daily Emails. In addition, I do not check Email (except personal) in the evenings, it interferes with my sleep.
You said it! Light is crucial to our biorhythms. Natural light is the best, of course, and it’s important how we use artificial light too. I read somewhere that keeping lights low, like below eye level, mimics the ancient light of the night, firelight. Bright light overhead mimics the sun. Makes sense to me. So at night, an hour or so before going to bed I try to keep the lights in the house low (which keeps the utility bill down too ;-). In the morning, if the sun isn’t up yet, or needs a bit of backup, bright overhead lights help.
Dear Mary, Thanks for this important tip and for sharing Julie Morgenstern as a resource. It is hard sometimes to resist peeking at email too early, too often and too late, what with smart phones and laptops, but the discipline does prevent a lot of wasted energy. Doing your three items before even checking email is a bold variation! I will have to try it. http://www.juliemorgenstern.com/