I am NOT a morning person. I never have been. I take about two hours to feel like my eyes are fully open and I often feel energized at night time. Night time is when I suddenly feel the urge to start giant craft projects or when I have my best writing ideas. My daughter calls me Snorlax, the famous sleepy Pokemon character who seldom wakes up and is motivated by food. She’s not far off. My kids laugh at me when I sleep in on weekends, asking me why I “love sleeping so much”. It’s not that I’m depressed (well, seldom because of that), or overwhelmed. I am just really good at sleeping. I wake up slowly, and I hate waking up before I’m ready. My dreams are vivid and my pillow soft and my bed the perfect amount of firm. Who would want to leave? I feel like crying if I am jarred awake by my alarm and have to leave comfy-land right away. Often I am awake but my body just will…not…move. I lay there and that is my time for planning the day or semi-meditation. I need that time.
Snorlax doing his favourite thing.
However, I also feel that I can plan my day or go in to a focused meditative-like state when I am working out. I realized that the other day and it was a very interesting revelation. It seems so simple and obvious to me now, but I never thought about it before.
These two things are related. Let me back up a bit.
My typical day is crazy busy- everybody that I ask says the same. Seems like that is revered in Canada. Busy is good; having down time is supposed to make one feel lazy and guilty, or so I have learned. I am trying to un-learn that (I know un-learn isn’t a word, but it sounds fun doesn’t it?). I have about 5 different projects on the go every day, plus housework and running the household, plus I am trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I try to find time to volunteer my time as well, so add that in to the mix. Anyway, you get the idea. My son is in half day kindergarten, so I have 2 hours to do stuff in the morning. I always mean to exercise- but by the time I get my kids out the door to school, see my husband off to work, clean up breakfast, prep lunch, and check my emails, it is time to go and get him already. Sometimes I manage to fit working out in after breakfast and coffee, and I feel like a hero, but the whole time I’m exercising, I worry about the time and what else I need to do that day. I love working out at night, but it often means it cuts in to my time to be with my husband one-on-one, or my time to blog or email or crochet…so that isn’t ideal anymore. My workouts are typically 30-45 mins, but you also have to figure in the time to shower, get in pjs, have a post-workout snack and tea time after. By the time I fall in to bed it is an hour (or two) later than I wanted to get to sleep. If I do go to bed earlier, I am thinking of the hour of productivity lost….It’s becoming a problem.
I keep saying I am going to work out in the morning. So far it hasn’t happened. I made a sort-of plan.
I used to let the husband or one of my kids wake me up. It could be an hour difference between times sometimes, so often my body was getting randomly ripped out of REM sleep. So I started a system where I set an alarm and let that wake me up. I set it for 7:30 am. (Yes I am spoiled. I used to have to wake up at 4am to go to work- which only made me cranky and didn’t turn me in to a morning person at all). I was hitting snooze 3 times in a row, then down to 2, then to 1, then to none. Now it depends on the day whether I hit snooze or get up right away. I usually only hit snooze if I’m in the middle of a dream and want to finish it. Since I am successfully getting up at around 7:30 am every day, give or take ten minutes, I think I could successfully get up a little earlier to exercise.
The plan is this. I get up at 7 am and get my exercise out of the way, shower as the kids are getting dressed for school and be down to eat breakfast with everyone else. If I’m super organized, I can prep breakfast the night before, so that I don’t eat badly if I am famished after my workout. Now, that plan is great in theory. I have tried this before. I have even SLEPT IN MY WORKOUT CLOTHES in order to be ready as soon as I wake up. I have put inspirational music as my wake-up alarm and I have set my alarm across the room so that I am forced to get out of bed to turn it off. I have done all of this and still, somehow, ended up back in bed.
I am hoping I am a different person now that I am a bit older and that I can pull this off. It would be nice to get it out of the way and have the whole day to do other things. I will never be a “morning person”, but maybe I can get up in the morning anyway…. Wish me luck! I am going to try it next week and see how it goes. I’ll let all of you know.
As I read your blog from yesterday it hit me that we are a lot alike. I too am a crocheter and a hard rise and shiner. I have four kids the youngest is almost 13 and the oldest is 30. That said I’m not a morning person and I have a hard time getting motivated to exercise. Probably from the chemo and cross contamination. I try to have a gf kitchen but having teens makes it hard.My youngest is a boy and I just made a deal with him to exercise with him on the Wii Fit starting on Monday morning the 1st of February. Wish me luck or say a prayer that I can do this with him because we both need to lose weight and get healthier. I would like to be around to see him grow up. =)
Good luck!!! I know you can do it.
[…] morning. It’s HARD. If you don’t remember HOW hard it is, go back to my blog post about hating mornings. I find it a struggle every morning, but I remind myself: that if I am tired, there is coffee; if I […]
How’d it go? I know that when I get out of the early morning routine, it can be difficult to get back into. For me, I get out of bed and am not allowed to go back into my bedroom until I am awake and moving around (so I don’t get back in bed).