If you wake up tired and groggy and spend your day lacking energy, motivation, and creativity, wouldn’t you want to improve the quality of your day if you could? Well, there is a way to feel happier and healthier with small and manageable changes.
Begin by waking up ten minutes earlier each day until you’ve reached 6 am. Start with rising ten minutes earlier for one week, and rise another ten minutes earlier the following week. Rising before sunrise helps to synchronize your body with the biological circadian rhythm. If you want to rise at 4 am, you are more than welcome to do this. Those of us who are creators, writers, meditators, and high achievers, will benefit significantly from waking up this early as it is known that the universal consciousness is asleep, which means less interference connecting to the source. The source is the wondrous place of information, inspiration, creation, truth, love, and infinite potential. Teachers and practitioners of spiritual sciences will always tell you to rise when the world’s consciousness is quiet. But others will also benefit because the energy at this hour is different- the sensation of peace is tangible and, therefore, will fill your vessel with energy, contentment, and love. Now wouldn’t it be worth it to feel this at the start of the day, every day? I suggest you try it. If it works, keep it. If it doesn’t work, leave it.
We have all kinds of responsibilities. Some people rush to work in the morning; others must get their kids to daycare or school, and many work from home. Whatever your early morning routine is, there is always a way to tweak details- especially when the benefits outweigh old habits that aren’t working. Sometimes, making a change for whatever reason is challenging, which is okay too. Start when you feel you can. People with irregular schedules or nightshifts will have to address their routines differently than this.
Part of feeling well and energetic is caring for your physical health. Physical health has a significant influence over our mental health, as mental health has a considerable influence over our physical health. Every individual has the job of balancing mind and body for optimal functioning. Although we are humans, we still operate via a mechanical process. While we sleep, our body undergoes a complex detoxification process. In other words, it removes toxins and helps to restore the body and mind to an optimal state. Our job is to help our body do this, or at least stay out of its way. Upon rising, brush your teeth and then your tongue with a tongue scraper because all the toxins will rise to the surface of the tongue during the detoxification process while asleep. If you don’t clean your mouth, your body will reabsorb this goo and recirculate in your body.
Train your body to have a bowel movement right after washing up or during this routine. Sit on the toilet in an optimal position with the help of a step stool to raise your knees, create a curve in the back, contract your abdomen, and signal your mind a physical response. If you do not clear your bowels in the morning, you will carry the waste, and your body will reabsorb all the toxins through your colon. Our goal is to release the waste, not reabsorb and recirculate toxins.
Drink a large glass of warm-temperature water to rehydrate all organs and systems. If you aren’t drinking all night, the body is dehydrated, and proper hydration is essential for feeling well. Don’t drink cold water. Cold water solidifies fats and toxins. I like to give a visual of using cold water vs. hot water to wash the dishes. I can never get the dishes clean with cold water. I usually add dish soap to the warm water to wash them effectively. Adding lemon or lime to the warm water in the am is like adding dish soap when washing dishes. It helps to detoxify the body’s channels as well as alkalize them. If this is new, I do not recommend you begin your day with warm water and lemon or lime. Start your day gently and compassionately. Drink a large glass of warm water and see how you feel.
You can always layer on to your routine later. In the early stages, fewer steps mean a higher likelihood of consistency. We are looking for consistency. Always. Because to create a new habit, you have to repeat the new action or behavior over and over many times. If you drink coffee, tea, or green juice, drink it after you drink a warm glass of water. If all this is new to you, I tell you that when you apply Ayurveda lifestyle skills to your day, water is never just water, coffee is never just coffee, and green juice is never just green juice. But this is a huge topic for a later time.
Before I go further, I want to highlight that there can be physical reasons for having mental health issues, and this means you need to rule out other illnesses with bloodwork, other doctors, and appropriate treatment. It would be best always to rule out bacteria, parasites, and other conditions. Without treating the root cause of the disease, it may be hard to alleviate mental health dysregulation.
As I mentioned earlier, both mind and body are one and have an integral functional relationship- they directly influence one another. After taking key steps in caring for your physical body, doing the same for the mind is essential. Meditation is the primary ingredient in toning the nervous system, creating space for processing and integrating information, creating mindful awareness, and facilitating the feeling of liberation and unspeakable abundance. This is a way to remove illnesses of the mind, such as anxiety and depression or panic attacks, and to create a safe space to release stagnant emotions.
After you complete your cleansing morning routine, I recommend sitting down with your eyes closed for ten minutes and focusing only on your breath. After one week, add another ten minutes, so you are up to twenty minutes of meditation in the morning. It’s also good to do a sun salutation x 12 and then sit down with your eyes closed. But if I were to choose personally, in order of importance, I would select meditation over stretches and later layer on. If you feel tired, stretching before meditating with your eyes closed may help wake your body up and prevent you from falling asleep when you close your eyes.
Ayurveda is the oldest recorded medicine of all time that is still current today. This is because it is adaptable in different ways to fit all kinds of people, conditions, lifestyles, and chronological times. It is very ambitious to follow everything to the T and completely unnecessary. So relax. Please make this an enjoyable routine, and remember that it is a spiritual, compassionate way of life. One in which you feel rooted in your Being, mindfully aware at all times of all things, and, most importantly, present in your mind, body, spirit, and life. This will support your energy, creativity, and motivation and improve the quality of your day and, as a direct result, your life.