Episode 3: Water Before Coffee

Description: Wellness doesn’t have to be complicated. In this episode, Tina invites you to try one small ritual that can make a big difference: drinking water first thing in the morning. Learn how pairing this habit with daily routines helps you stay consistent, energized, and aligned with how you want to feel.

Resources: Buy Self-Care Squad gear at https://www.bonfire.com/selfcareforeducators. Buy 180 Days of Self-Care for Busy Educators from Amazon, Marzano Resources, or Solution Tree.

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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to episode three of season six of Self-Care for Educators. I am your host, Dr. Tina Boogren, and I want to pause per usual, and, um, just check in. Let's just, everyone just check in for a second and really ask yourself how you're doing. Have you been continuing the invitation from our first episode of this season about noticing one good thing each day? Have you been making choices that align with how you want to feel in order to live your best life and drink that dumb water? And did you remind yourself to do that by treating yourself to a t-shirt or a sweatshirt over on https://www.bonfire.com/selfcareforeducators? It's not too late, or maybe you like it so much that you want to treat yourself to a sweatshirt if you bought a t-shirt. Or a hoodie iif you bought the crew neck. Head on over to https://www.bonfire.com/selfcareforeducators and treat yourself. Yay! 

So kind of along those same lines, my invitation for this week is super, super, super simple, and I love super simple ones. So I've been thinking a lot about drinking stupid water. I think because of designing the merchandise and I'm wearing my merchandise and so I want to make it even more simple. Something that I have been doing for years and years and years, but I don't think I've talked about on the podcast, is that I drink one full glass of water before I have my morning coffee. And that's my invitation for you. Before you put anything else in your body, I want you to drink water first. 

I mean, we can do this, right? This is a BAM. This is a bare acceptable or bare ass minimum, right? Teeny tiny little thing. Because things are getting real busy, probably at work and at school. You maybe have your back to school night or you've got events going on. All of the thing. Your own children are getting busy with all the things. And so it's important to remember that our wellness is on a dial. I talk about this in my book, 180 Days of  Physical Wellness for Busy Educators (I had to pause for a second there) and think about, our wellness is always on a dial and we have times in our lives or weeks where we can turn the dial up and do more.

And we have sometimes where we turn the dial down and we have to think about what is the bare minimum. And so the bare minimum is before you do anything else in the morning, just chug water. Maybe that means that you keep, you know, a glass of water by your bed and the minute that you wake up, you chug that water. For me I have my glass of water right by the coffee pot. So when I hit start in the morning and that coffee starts brewing, I have to finish that whole glass of water before I can have the coffee. Maybe coffee isn't your thing. Maybe you are one of my Diet Coke drinkers in the morning or whatever your thing is. What if you just commit to drinking water first? 

Now, some of you, you already do this. This is easy for you. Yay! So maybe you give yourself a little break this week and you're like, yeah, I'm good to go. Or maybe you think about how can you turn the dial up? So if water in the morning, you already do that, are you drinking water the rest of the day? When was the last time that you really checked how much water are you actually drinking? I know I sometimes feel like, yeah, I'm nailing my water, and then when I really stop and think about it, I'm really not. I really need to drink way more. 

Remember, the general rule of thumb is to drink half of your body weight in ounces of water each day. I'll say that again. Half of your body weight in ounces of water each day as a minimum. So if it's still hot outside, which a lot of places, it is still very warm outside. If you are exercising or sweating at all, you want to up your water intake. So maybe this is like a good, let me just double check and see how much water I'm actually drinking. How much water does your water bottle hold? I sometimes feel like my water bottle is humongous. I feel like I'm carrying around this massive, huge water bottle. And then when I turn it over, I'm like, oh. It's not as massive as I thought. I actually need to drink two, two and a half of those each day. So just drinking one is not enough.

So it's a good little reset for you. Maybe you take this and it kind of becomes your go-to, like before you have anything else, you drink water. So water in the morning before coffee, maybe water before you start eating lunch, or water before you grab your afternoon Diet Coke or Sonic drink or whatever it is. Water in the evening before you have dinner or before you have that snack. Just kind of pairing it with other things. P-A-I-R-I-N-G, we know is one of those habit building strategies. If we take a habit that we already have in place and put a new habit with it, pair those two together, there's a good chance that that habit will stick a little bit easier.

So, that's it. That's what I want you to think about this week. Keep it so, so simple.  If you want to stick with the original invitation, it is to have water before you have anything else in the morning. For me, that would be my morning coffee. So chug that water. If you wanna turn that dial up. Maybe you are doing a little kind of audit of yourself, of how much water am I actually drinking? Am I drinking the amount of water that I think I am? How much water does my water bottle hold? And how many of those am I drinking and can I spread that out throughout the day? Maybe you want to think about that whole pairing strategy. So you are gonna really commit to pairing drinking water with other things that you already have. Maybe that's every time you eat or drink. Just put something in your mouth, right? When you get a snack, something, oh, drink water, drink water. 

Maybe you decide that you are going to drink your water in between each class. Maybe you have one student that is in charge of reminding you to drink water. Whatever it is, you've set a timer on your phone. You set, you write it on your wrist. Remember my little wrist reminders to drink that dumb, stupid water. So I know we've talked about water before, but like so many habits, it's so easy to lose habits that we think we have. And so revisiting those can be really, really, really, really important.

And if you need a reminder, jump on over to https://www.bonfire.com/selfcareforeducators and buy yourself a t-shirt, a hoodie, a crew neck sweatshirt, something to just remind yourself that by drinking that dumb, stupid water, you are making a choice for the bigger life. Where you are able to show up as your very, very, very best self every single day for yourself, for your students, for your family. Ah, and what a difference that can make. 

As always, you guys, I'm cheering so stinking hard for you, and I'm recommitting this week to making sure that I stick to my good habits, my BAMs, my little itty bitty rituals and routines that I know that I know help me live my best life every single day. I'm so grateful for you. I'm also so grateful for Adrienne. We all are, we're also so grateful for Marzano Resources and Solution Tree that provides such good, uh, support for educators and for me. And as always, to you, the badass self-care squad, I'm cheering so stinking hard for you. I hope you are putting those orders in for the t-shirts and the sweatshirts. I can't wait to start, seeing the pictures. Treat yourself, you absolutely deserve it. And feel my hand on your back as you move through the week. Feel my hand on your back as you chug that stupid, dumb water and say to yourself, by doing this, I am living my very best life. Oh, go crush it this week, you guys, you've got this.