Description: Dr. Tina Boogren shares tips for creating a morning routine that aligns with how you want to feel and sets you up for success all day long.
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to episode three of season five of Self Care for Educators. I am your host, Dr. Tina Boogren. I am so happy that you are here and we are getting ready to dig into another strategy that I'm certain we've talked about before but that is essential and it's going to kind of serve as a bookend to what we talked about last week in our second episode, which was all about setting up our bedtime routine.
Well, you guessed it, this week we're going to tackle our morning routine. I want us to really get clear around what we want to put into place for our morning routine for the 24-25 school year and hopefully we're building here for this fifth season. So as a reminder in episode one, we identified how we wanted to feel. And in episode two, we talked about getting a really good night's sleep by setting up for success with that sleep by having a really strong, essential bedtime routine, which is going to help us be able to feel the way we want to feel.
And then this week we're going to talk about how we wanna start our mornings out to, again, assume that we've had a great night's sleep because we put some things into place and we know exactly how we want to feel and so our morning is our opportunity to grab onto that and make it happen. So you get to design your morning routine and everyone's life looks different I realize, so there's no set way to do this.
We know some of you, some of you are getting a whole lot of people ready to go besides you and that makes it really challenging. For some of you, you can have the luxury of a nice leisurely morning. We are all over the board here, but I'm just going to, again, kind of throw out some ideas for you to consider as you are designing or maybe revisiting or kind of remodeling, restructuring your current morning routine so that you set yourself up to start the day from a really positive place.
That's our goal here, right? What we want is we want to start our day on the right foot. So some things for us to consider. What I want you to think about is what can you do the night before to help create a sense of calm in the morning? So maybe, maybe you want to go back to that bedtime routine that you set up last week, and maybe you spend a little bit of time getting your lunch ready to go, getting your bag packed, deciding what you're going to wear, getting all those essential pieces done. The more you can get done the night before, oh, you will thank yourself. This is where I always say, your future self will thank you by doing something tonight to get yourself ready to go.
And then think about what makes the most sense for you? Now, I recommend if you can avoid the snooze button, I know that's a really hard one. This is where you're going to implement- do you remember the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1? Boom, get up and go. That's what we want to do. Here's what we know, according to a study done out the University of Notre Dame, 57 percent of people hit the snooze button each morning. So I know that this is very common, but the reality is that that habit doesn't make us feel more rested, instead what the research shows and what we know is that it actually makes us more sleepy. So what a neurologist at Houston Methodist who specialized in sleep medicine says, and that is Dr. Aarthi Ram, if i'm saying that correctly, um the 10 minutes of sleep that you're granting yourself over and over again, isn't actually productive sleep. If anything, all of that interrupted sleep actually just makes you feel more groggy. So here's the deal, turn off the snooze option on your phone. And when that alarm goes off, you countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and you get up and you go.
Also, many experts recommend that you get up and you make your bed because at the very least you have already accomplished that and you've done it before the day even begins. It can just get you that positive sensation going and you can just build on that success as the day goes on.
Try to avoid picking up your phone first thing in the morning. There's a startling statistic that says that 89% of Americans check their phone within 10 minutes of waking up and that is just not necessarily the way we want to start our day. It can be a time-waste, we can get sucked into emails and stress or comparison on social media. So instead, let's just avoid that and that's going to be easy for us to do because we have put our, um, electronics, our phones in a different room. Right? So we're not tempted to grab that first thing when we wake up.
Decide, are you going to eat breakfast? Is breakfast for you? Everyone is a little bit different on this, but if breakfast is something that's important to you, can you have that ready? Is that easy? Is it something that you can take in the car with you? Make sure if you can, if you can get some protein, so you've got that energy to start the day.
Maybe you experiment with trying breakfast. Um, maybe experiment with having breakfast a little bit later in the day. Maybe, and not maybe actually, maybe is the wrong word. What I want to say is, let's do this- let's drink water! Drink that stupid water. I know! And listen, I am not saying that you cannot have coffee because you cannot take coffee out of my hands. And we know that 73% of Americans drink coffee each day, but let's not make that the first thing we put into our body. Let's chug water, have one glass or whatever works for you. Before you grab that coffee, we are dehydrated when we wake up. And so the first thing we want to put into our body is water, not caffeine, not coffee that actually dehydrates us even more.
Maybe you like to exercise in the morning. I know a lot of people do this. I know a lot of people that is a “heck no!” Figure out what works for you, but it can feel really good to start our day before decision fatigue hits in and all the, all the kind of excuses come in at the end of the day. If we just get it done in the morning, even just a quick walk; doesn't have to be a long, formal thing. Even just standing outside can be really, really helpful. And let's take advantage of it while for many of us, the weather is still okay to do that.
Other things that you might consider is again, playing music in the morning. Maybe you want to avoid turning the news on. We know the news is always bad, bad, terrible news. So by setting ourselves up with a podcast or an audible book, an audio book, or just music, a great playlist to get us going. That can be a really wonderful, wonderful way to start the day.
Maybe you want to write down your to-do list or the three most essential things that you want to tackle. Maybe you want to, again, record how do you want to feel today? Maybe you want to prioritize making sure that the most difficult tasks are done earlier in the day before that decision fatigue kind of creeps in. Maybe, maybe you are, you get up in the morning and you've got a little extra time and you can do something that feels really kind of indulgent. Just sitting on the couch with your cup of coffee or sitting on your porch and not doing anything.
Maybe you have a hobby and you can do that actually in the morning. Maybe you're working on a puzzle or you're painting and you give yourself the gift of a little bit of time to do that in the morning. What a great way to start the day.
So here's what I want you to think about. I want you to think about what is it that you want to change about your morning? What is it that you love about your morning that you don't want to change, that you want to hold on to? How is it that you want to feel? And what are activities that you can ensure both that are part of your bedtime routine and your morning routine to help you tap into those feelings? And I want you to try it this week. I'm going to do the same thing with you. I'm at a place where I kind of need to revisit some of my habits in the morning as I associate those habits back with how I want to feel. Let's work on this together.
As always, thank you, Adrienne. We love you. We are so stinking grateful for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, Marzano Resources and Solution Tree for this job I get to do. And to you, my badass self care squad, I'm cheering so stinking hard for you. Turn that music up and make it a great day!
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