Need a morning pick me up?
The past few weeks I have been finding it REALLY hard to get out of bed in the morning.
The first few days it happened I was annoyed and a little confused. What was wrong with me?
The next few days I became frustrated. I felt behind and wasn't getting everything done because I was moving so slowly all day, especially in the morning.
Finally, I began to realize what was going on.
Between the loss of morning light and the intense amount of ragweed in the air, I would wake up exhausted, even after 8-9 hours of sleep, with puffy eyes, a lot of congestion and feeling mentally foggy. Like I was at 50% capacity.
Part of me wanted to throw my hands up.
When so many external factors are impacting us, it can be easy to play victim of the circumstances and feel like disempowered and like we just have to accept it.
And to be honest, that’s what I did for a couple days.
But I also started to give myself grace. (Which also means I stopped criticizing myself and feeling like something was wrong with me.)
Here’s the thing with grace, it softens us and creates space.
In that space I suddenly started thinking of all these experiments I could try to help improve how I felt!
I remembered tools and techniques I’d done before that have worked in the past.
So last night I took my power back.
I changed my pillow case, washed residual pollen out of my brush and comb, VERY thoroughly washed my hair and put a bowl of Himalayan salt by my bed to support my respiratory system.
Would it all help? I didn’t know. But I felt better having tried.
And you know what. It did!
I noticed throughout the night that I was breathing easier and my nose was more clear. And I woke up at 5:30 feeling alert and awake. (You may know that I am NOT usually a morning girl)
It reminded me of how many ways our body affirms life every morning simply by us waking up, no matter how tired we might be feeling.
From that first breath we inhale to our need to use the bathroom and start our body’s cleansing process, it’s like our body is saying thank you for the chance we have to live another day.
Whether it’s allergies making you tired, lack of daylight, a poor night’s sleep or any other reason you might be struggling to get out of bed, there is a lot you can do to support your body’s natural processes in the morning and help yourself feel even just a little bit better.
