Becoming a morning person is not something that came easy to me. I am naturally inclined to stay up late and wake up late. As a busy parent I often found late nights to be the quietest time in our house so I could actually get work done without being interrupted by kids, texts and phone calls, or kid activities that required me to stop everything to drive around town. When Covid hit, I didn’t immediately change my ways — I still had a lot of energy late at night and very little desire to go to bed — but the need to stay up late was naturally eliminated because there just simply isn’t as much going on. Even now that we have resumed many of our regular activities I haven’t slipped back into my night owl ways. I have made some positive changes to keep consistent with the habit — today I’m sharing some of the things I do.
- Exercise First Thing In the Morning. A change I made during Covid was to begin each day with a workout first thing in the morning. For many years I had the luxury of a flexible schedule so I would exercise mid-morning. Now I wake up early and do an online workout as soon as the kids are out the door or go to a bootcamp at my gym. I know I have to wake up and be somewhere early so it creates an incentive to get to bed on time.
- Wake Up At The Same Time Consistently. I don’t exercise every morning of the week but I try to wake up around the same time anyway. I’ve found the consistency of waking up around the same time has helped me establish a consistent pattern of winding down around the same time every night. Instead of staying up really late one or two nights a week my bedtime and wake up times are pretty similar all seven days.
- Use A Sleep Tracker. During Covid I realized that I function best with 7-8 hours of sleep. Any less and I’m tired and dragging the next day. Any more and it’s the same thing. I began using the app on my phone that allows me to set my wake up time and I work back from that to determine my bed time. I aim to get 7.5 hours a sleep each night.
- Wake Up To Morning Light. While some people love black out shades, having the natural light to wake up to helps me want to get out of bed. I hate the thought of wasting away my day — I thrive on having a sense of accomplishment — so having the daylight greet me in the morning has been helpful in helping to get me up. I keep my blinds half open so there is always morning light to remind me it’s time to wake up.
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