As some of you might now in January I decided to set myself the challenge of becoming more of a morning person. I have to say I wasn't feeling particularly optimistic! But you know what? I did okay. When my alarm goes off at 7:30am I don't bounce out of bed, smiling and ready to start the day. Heck no. I moan and groan and gradually crawl out of bed at around 8am and then sit slumped in my desk chair drinking tea and cursing the existence of pre 10am. But the important thing is, I'm awake.
I thought I would talk you through the three sections of my Morning Person Challenge. This is a plan I made by myself using an amalgamation of several blog posts and articles that I found. My aim was to be asleep by 1:30 am and awake by 8:30am.
The Night Before
Step 1: Have a hot shower or bath - I spent the first part of January doing this and the second half not doing it. I would definitely say that having a hot shower before bed helped me to be ready to got to sleep.
Step 2: No screens after 12:30pm - Eurgh! I am so bad at this but it does make a big difference to how quickly you get to sleep.
Step 3: Set ONE alarm - Previous to this I used to have to set at least 6 alarms to actually wake up. I can't say I've got down to one alarm but I'm down to two and that's impressive for me. I now have one alarm set on my phone for 7:30am and another set on my alarm clock across the room at 8am so I actually have to get out of bed.
Step 4: 1am lights off - I'm getting used to this and it's going okay(ish).
During The Night
Step 1: Quiet music/audio book - I CANNOT sleep in silence so I have to have an audiobook playing quietly in the background.
Step 2: Can't sleep? - dim light and calming task - generally I turn a dim light on and read a book.
In The Morning
Step 1: No snooze button - when the alarm goes off get up.
Step 2: 8am weekdays/9am weekends - You have to be nice to yourself at the weekends right?
Step 3: Go for a walk - I did not keep this up. At all. Big props to my sister who woke up with me at 8am for almost a week to go on a walk with me. But I'm sorry 8am in February in Scotland. It's dark, it's rainy. No. Just no. I don't care enough or like cheerful dog walkers enough for that.
All in all I'm calling this a semi-success. I think I've succeeded in the areas that matter most. I mean I'm actually getting up in the mornings. I'm just not doing it in a very happy way! Maybe it will be easier in the summer when it's not dark outside or freezing cold.
I've decided that I like having a monthly challenge to focus on so I'm going to do this every month. I'm going to keep going with trying to be a morning person but set myself another challenge for the coming month. February's monthly challenge is setting myself 28 days of bible verses to read, write out and study. Let's see how this one goes!
Kate // SimplyKarah
No comments:
Post a Comment