Start your Mornings Slow—Try Anyone of These Instead

It doesn’t matter which side of the bed you wake up on. It only matters if you start it right 🌞. Our state-of-mind affects how we react and get things done. By starting our mornings slow☁️, we start off calm and collected—our mind and body isn’t in fight or flight mode, we are inspired and ideas come to us easily. We are in the state of the solution and not the problems. Sounds perfect? Why not try one of these ways or all of them combined to start your morning slow:

1️⃣ Deep Breaths
Very often when we wake up, we’re either shocked by our alarms or bombarded with notifications on our phones, before attending to that, why not take some deep nourishing breaths to center yourself. Taking deep breaths really help to center our mind and focus on our bodies.

Are you conscious about you breathing? Breathing has always been a subconscious action. Why not start your day by focusing and giving thanks to the vital action that actually keeps us alive. Focusing on our breaths is a subtle nod to what is truly important—being alive.

2️⃣ Slow Yoga Flow
Some of my fav poses: Cat & Cow, Child’s Pose, Downward dog, Malasana Squat
If you’re a regular yoga-goer, doing a simple flow without any judgement can really awaken the body. You don’t even have to do it right, the whole point is to listen to the body and enjoy the stretch. Starting your day with a slow flow can bring in more oxygen to the brain and get the body in a positive state. The focus on your body and movement help remove any nasty thoughts that are still lingering in your head from a bad dream or the night before.

3️⃣ Meditation
Guided or Unguided, Lying down or Sitting Down
Meditation is the best tool to release negative thoughts or overwhelming thoughts into a space of ‘emptiness’. This really helps us to refresh our minds. Meditation really reminds me of restarting a computer and suddenly everything is fresh and works like new again. Let’s not hang out too long on a overused and overloaded state. Meditate and get refreshed to being again.

4️⃣ A glass of Warm Water
Our body has been in a state of stillness for so long while asleep. It’s important to not shock the body when you wake up. Try drinking a glass of warm water to wake up your insides gently. If you’re someone who suffers from tummy issues, add a slice of lemon too, this would really change up the rest of the day.

Ideally when I did not oversleep and need to rush my butt out of bed, this would be how I would love to start my day. But there is no rush or no shame here, we’re all trying our best everyday. The most important thing is to start our days positive & with no judgment.

With love,
Chara

This was originally posted on Lemon8.