Got the Monday morning blues? It’s the first day of the week, even after a Bank Holiday, here’s how to sizzle - Week 1.
It’s 7:25. You hit snooze.
It’s 7:32… yeah you did it. You hit snooze.
It’s 7:39. OK – the week just got real. Monday morning is here.
If you’re anything like me, you are suddenly acutely aware that you need to be at work in less than an hour. You’re tired, grumpy and miffed that the weekend has been so rudely interrupted by the working week. Especially when you were mid-way through such a lovely dream.
Oh well, time to get your shit face game face on. The question is: how do you find it and, dare I say it, even enjoy Monday?
Routines are a really great idea in theory. But whenever New Year’s resolutions come round I am annually reminded at how bad I am at starting a new habit I really don’t want to do. For your sake, I hope you are a better person than I am here.
So, as I find a new routine habit very hard to stick to, I need to start with the quick wins with a positively skewed reward structure to maintain it.
Here are the 3 simple things I started last week that I benefited from. I want to share so you can benefit too.
Click to play Blue Monday by New Order as you read →
Step 1: Water
Drink a big glass of it as soon as you wake up. Make it the very first thing you do. That means before you reach for your phone with no notifications thousands of messages from all your friends who don’t know how they have possibly managed without you for the past 7 hours.
Make this the very first thing you do.
That means right now if you haven’t already. Even if it is 2pm when you read this, do it.
Hydration = energy
“Do it. Do it Now!”
REWARD: Just like exercise, it’s really hard to feel the effects right away. However I guarantee that if you try it for a week, by putting a big glass of water between you and your phone before you go to bed at night, you’ll be feeling jazzy throughout your day in no time.
HELPFUL HARRY’S HINT:
Keep that glass in the bedroom and make it your morning glass. You’ll see the empty glass before you go to bed and it’ll remind you about this AWESOME new morning ritual.
Step 2: Leave your curtains open
Leaving your curtains or blinds open allows the morning sun to invade your room and help you to rise and shine. You get vitamin D (bonus), which is a natural source of energy.
Ever wondered why you never feel grumpy when on a beach holiday in Thailand? Now you know why.
REWARD: If you convince everyone in the neighbourhood to do it too, it’ll make for some really interesting sights if you’re the first in your street to rise for work.
Step 3: Make sure your morning alarm clock isn’t within reach of your bed
Baby steps are easy, baby steps are fun.
The first baby step you can make in the morning, is actually getting out of bed – but we all know that’s easier than it sounds.
Start by putting that eye-opening sound box of yours the other side of the room. Set the tune to something funky that’ll make you smile, as no one likes waking to bad vibes.
REWARD: You will no longer be snoozing and losing.
So there you have it, this week’s top 3 tips to avoid the Monday morning blues are drink plenty of water, leave the curtains open and make sure your morning alarm is out of reach so you aren’t tempted to do any further snoozing.
Next week we’ll share some more morning tips and tricks to start the day like the early bird who gets that juicy worm.
What is your favourite morning ritual?