Day 3 of 365 - The Blessed Early Hours of Sunday
Sunday is one of the only days of the week that I am not on a timeline to be somewhere or do some household chore in the morning. I do not sleep in on Sundays. I am an early riser, a morning person, always have been and even without an alarm I most always wake up at the usual time.
For the past 20 years my husband has worked a job where he needs to arrive by 7 a.m. We set our alarm for 5:15 and even on weekends I wake up around this time or even earlier. (There will definitely be future posts about sleep issues and strategies!) My husband does sleep in on weekends, so I have two or sometimes three hours of quiet solitude before he gets up.
Here is my early morning routine, and admittingly I do this every morning but can linger longer with it on Sundays. I go to the kitchen, empty the dishwasher and fill the kettle to heat for our morning green tea. (Though I still love the smell of coffee I gave it up several years ago because it affected my sleep.) Then I go to the living room and spread out my yoga mat on the rug.
I spend a nice block of time doing a series of stretches and gentle exercises or poses that I have learned from my yoga and pilates classes. One of the reasons that I spring out of bed so readily is that some part of my body is usually complaining by then, with a sore or stiff area or a muscle cramp. There's nothing quite like a foot or calf cramp to get you out of bed in a hurry! So, these stretches and poses ease out tension in my body and help set me up for my day. I go from lying on my back to practicing standing balance on one foot by the end of the series. It's actually a kind of meditative process for me.
Then I go to the kitchen to make a large pot of green tea. While it is steeping I go back to a comfy chair and press on a series of acupressure points on my lower legs, feet, wrists and hands. I learned these from consultations in my early menopausal years from a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. (Thank you Lisa!) It's another great way to check in with the body.
This routine is so important to me for starting my day that I take a folding yoga mat with me whenever I know I will be away from home overnight. So it's pretty rare for me to miss a day.
When that's all done I pour myself a large mug of green tea and either sit in the kitchen sipping on it and reading or go to the computer to read online. I love and really value reading and will talk more about it in future posts as well.
I love the quiet early morning hours when there is little to hear from outside other than passing trains, the occasional dog bark and depending on the season, the early morning chirping of birds. This gentle time alone means a lot in my search for health and vitality.
For the past 20 years my husband has worked a job where he needs to arrive by 7 a.m. We set our alarm for 5:15 and even on weekends I wake up around this time or even earlier. (There will definitely be future posts about sleep issues and strategies!) My husband does sleep in on weekends, so I have two or sometimes three hours of quiet solitude before he gets up.
Here is my early morning routine, and admittingly I do this every morning but can linger longer with it on Sundays. I go to the kitchen, empty the dishwasher and fill the kettle to heat for our morning green tea. (Though I still love the smell of coffee I gave it up several years ago because it affected my sleep.) Then I go to the living room and spread out my yoga mat on the rug.
I spend a nice block of time doing a series of stretches and gentle exercises or poses that I have learned from my yoga and pilates classes. One of the reasons that I spring out of bed so readily is that some part of my body is usually complaining by then, with a sore or stiff area or a muscle cramp. There's nothing quite like a foot or calf cramp to get you out of bed in a hurry! So, these stretches and poses ease out tension in my body and help set me up for my day. I go from lying on my back to practicing standing balance on one foot by the end of the series. It's actually a kind of meditative process for me.
Then I go to the kitchen to make a large pot of green tea. While it is steeping I go back to a comfy chair and press on a series of acupressure points on my lower legs, feet, wrists and hands. I learned these from consultations in my early menopausal years from a doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine. (Thank you Lisa!) It's another great way to check in with the body.
This routine is so important to me for starting my day that I take a folding yoga mat with me whenever I know I will be away from home overnight. So it's pretty rare for me to miss a day.
When that's all done I pour myself a large mug of green tea and either sit in the kitchen sipping on it and reading or go to the computer to read online. I love and really value reading and will talk more about it in future posts as well.
I love the quiet early morning hours when there is little to hear from outside other than passing trains, the occasional dog bark and depending on the season, the early morning chirping of birds. This gentle time alone means a lot in my search for health and vitality.
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