Getting up before 8:30 a.m. can be really nice. There’s so much more time available in my day now, and my waking hours are spent more while the sun is out as opposed to while it’s not.

I rise as the sun does, and there’s something really harmonious about that. My circadian rhythm is no longer being compromised, I guess. That means that when 12 a.m. finally rolls around, I’m actually ready to go to bed. 

This aspect makes the practice phenomenal for anyone with insomnia. 

And when I wake, there are so many things I can do in my morning that will add to my day. Things that I never had time for before like making coffee and eating breakfast finally have a time slot. Other things like watering the plants on my windowsill, feeding my pets, and occasionally practicing yoga are all finally an option. There’s just so much more time. 

Morning practices can save the day, and now I understand part of why the old adage goes “breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” It’s about starting off strong and setting the bar for the rest of the day. 

Personally, it’s the coffee part of the breakfast deal that makes it so sweet. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and was advised to drink three cups a day, one during each meal, and it has helped infinitely. It’s kind of counterintuitive, as coffee is a stimulant, but it definitely helps the static go away.

What I’ve observed from my morning routine is that just within the first 20 minutes of waking up, you can generally project the trajectory of your entire day. Sure, every now and then there’s a harsh wind at noon, but mostly your whole path seems to be charted just by the time you brush your teeth. How you wake up feeling matters.

That aforementioned ‘static’ is a feeling that’s been plaguing me for some time, and never is it worse than in the morning. It’s reminiscent of the thought ‘I don’t know where my mind is,’ and laying in bed letting your mind topple in on itself after snoozing the alarm for the fifth time definitely doesn’t lend any clarity. In short, don’t think about getting out of bed, just do it.

And yet absolutely nothing I’ve said is profound; it’s all pretty straightforward. If you feel bad in your current routine, change it. 

My grandma always used to say “happiness is a choice.” That always bugged me, especially since every time she’d pop it on me, I was in fact not happy. She seemed to be the type to just wake up happy, like she was biologically endowed with it or something. My Mom and I called it ‘bluebird syndrome,’ because sometimes we fell under the popular misconception that some people, akin to Cinderella or Snow White, woke up to bluebirds singing and mice toiling around with ribbon. Obviously, this is not true, but sometimes it certainly felt like it. 

True, some people, for whatever reason, due to serotonin receptors or whatever, are biologically predisposed to happiness. But for the rest of us, there’s always the choice to do something. Do what you can with what you have and if what you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, decide to do something else.