Early Bird

I’m not particularly fond of waking up via alarm clock. I prefer waking up on my own when my body is ready. I know what you're thinking: Take a number, lady!

Our bodies are meant to align with the rhythm of nature—up with the sun, down with the sun. The eight-hour work day is a man-made invention. I’m not a fan of interrupting my sleep so that I can be in an office by 9 a.m., spending most of the day inside a windowless room, staring at a monitor. Nor am I a fan of the rush to get this man-made day started, and compete with thousands of other New Yorkers during morning rush hour.

I'd much rather take as long as I need to get ready, and then get a good amount of sunshine in my day. I can dream, can’t I?!

Our bodies know what to anticipate each day, which only adds to the stress, and the overall equation of why mornings can be particularly rough.

When my anxiety and IBS were really bad, I used to have what I called “morning sickness.” Essentially, I was sick to my stomach almost every morning.

Each day I gave myself an hour to get ready and leave for work. Most days, I would have to go to the bathroom the second I woke up—diarrhea. This kept me in the bathroom for long periods of time, before I could shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, pack my lunch, and everything else I needed to do before work. And because I spent a lot of time in the bathroom, there was no self-care worked into my morning routine.

On rare occasions, I would get through my entire morning without having to go to the bathroom... until the very last minute when I was leaving the apartment. At that point, I’d have to go back inside, take off my coat, set down my purse, and now I’d be really stressed out because in a few minutes, I’d be officially running late.

I was extremely stressed out that all these bathroom visits were not only going to make me late, but they were also taking a physical and emotional toll on me. The stress of it all only made me have to go to the bathroom more! Diarrhea set the tone for the rest of my day, so I was not exactly chipper. And since I lived with someone at the time, I worried about how this morning routine was affecting his day, as well.

Stress, stress, stress!!

This was simply not sustainable. Something needed to change. I wanted to snap my fingers and just be healthy, and poof! Problem solved! But I knew it wasn’t going to come that easy.

Then one day, someone suggested to me that I wake up an hour earlier than I normally do. A simple enough concept. But I thought they were out of their mind! There was no way I was giving up my precious sleep! Even though I’d still be getting a healthy amount of sleep, I didn’t want to lose that hour. Besides, giving myself two hours to get ready seemed a bit excessive, don't ya think?

So I ignored that suggestion for a long time, and here is what happened: Nothing improved.

I continued to have “morning sickness” and continued to expect to have it, which kept the cycle going. I was frequently late to work, and sometimes had to call out all together. Try as I might, I was in a pattern that would not change.

It's amazing how we can be so desperate for relief and yet so attached to our habits, so resistant to change.

I finally decided to try my friend’s advice and wake up just one hour earlier than normal. I tried it for a few weeks, and to my delight, it made such a positive difference! As long as I was still getting 7-8 hours, I was happy.

It’s not that I needed two full hours to get ready (my morning routine took just about an hour), it was that I now had so much more breathing room!

Here are a few things I learned from the experience:

1- Having all that extra time took a huge weight off my shoulders. Although it didn’t immediately stop me from having to go to the bathroom, I felt so much more relaxed. I could do whatever I needed to do, without the pressure of others waiting on me or being late.

2- I could poop when I had to without pressure. While some mornings my stomach was awake before me, there were other mornings when it took time for my digestion to get moving. Before I started giving myself ample time in the morning, I risked my digestion waking up just as I was walking out the door, which caused panic (either I go now and I’m late, or I risk having an accident on the train). But once I had more time in the morning, whenever my stomach woke up, it allowed me to go to the bathroom peacefully, without the stress of rushing.

3- Work itself became more tolerable! Yes, this was a pleasant side effect of waking up earlier! When I used to get up for work, that’s exactly what I was doing: I was getting up FOR WORK. Work was the sole purpose of my day. And of course, at the end of a long work day, I had just enough energy to watch an episode of “Breaking Bad” before passing out and doing it all over again the next day. Once I started getting up earlier, work was just one of many things I was doing that day. I would get up, stretch, meditate, eat a leisurely breakfast, go to the bathroom (of course), get dressed, cook and pack my lunch. Sometimes I would draw or write, all before I left for work. As such, work became just a to-do item, equal to any other chore in my day, rather than the star of the show.

Having said all that, it’s still frustrating that we have to wake up before we are ready. Aside from getting up earlier, there are a few other tricks I’ve picked up over the years which have helped me make the waking up process smoother.

1- Choose your alarm carefully. Make your alarm more agreeable with your body. Some heavy sleepers may insist they need a loud, jarring sound to wake up, but I found that more soothing sounds were equally as successful in doing the job. The alarm I choose for myself sounds like classical music and it starts off quiet and increases in volume gradually. This helps me wake up more naturally.

2- Switch it up from time to time. Any alarm, no matter how calming and enjoyable to hear, will start to get on your nerves if you begin to associate it with having to get up. So, switch it up every once in a while. As soon as you feel yourself starting to hate your alarm, pick a new sound.

3- Stretch and meditate in bed. I'd prefer to get out of bed and stretch, but if I'm too tired, doing simple stretches and breathing in bed helps bridge the gap between sleep and awake, and also saves a little bit of time.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!