Today, I want to talk about one of my favorite things as not only a mother, but as a wife: Having a self-care power hour. It's been something that I find helps me a lot to be a better wife and mother. And I've had a lot of you ask how I get up at 4-5 am every day, so I thought why not share my method to my madness.
Why Do Mornings Suck So Much?
But before I reveal all of my secrets to you all, let's have a talk about mornings.
Raise your hand if:
You constantly snooze your alarm in the morning,.
You are always running late to work or have no spare time before the kids wake up.
You feel like you have absolutely no time in the morning to do anything.
Well, if you're anything like me, I have once raised my hand to ALL of these things. I used to find it so difficult to get up out of bed every morning snoozing my alarms for about a whole hour. But then I realized that maybe it was because I had nothing to really be enthusiastic about in my mornings (other than coffee of course). And afterwards, I was able to properly change my morning routine (or lack there of at the time) to get myself pumped up about waking up in the morning with the added bonus of taking care of me within the process.
The Power Hour
I wanted to establish an hour to develop three main things: (1) 20 minutes focused on my mind, (2) 20 minutes focused on my body, and (3) 20 minutes focused on my soul. Because I think that these are the three elements to taking care of yourself. At first, I was thinking - Do I really need a whole hour to do this? But as soon as I started doing it, I became so excited for my morning and it not only made getting up a lot easier, but also improved my mood to kick-start my days. I now feel more productive, less stressed, and just feel more positive when I take on the beginning of my day.
How to Do It
Pick three essential activities: Start by choosing three activities that will activate your mind, body, and soul. For mind, I usually choose to read a couple chapters out of my book of the week. You can also meditate, journal, color, do a little soduku, or even start learning a new language. For body, I try to do a nice intense workout to get my body fired up. You can also walk do yoga, dance around, non-running cardio, just stretch, or do some skin care routines. For soul, I like to read my Bible. You can also, listen to a good podcast, watch a TED talk, bake, cook, or start a new project.
Set aside the time: I like to set aside an hour at least every morning to do this. Which at first, felt like an impossible task, but I kept in mind the goal to find activities that I was excited about and would find enjoyable so that I don't really mind losing that hour of sleep. Plus I went in baby steps - waking up 20 minutes earlier each week until I got to the time that I wanted to wake up.
Time yourself: You don't have to do it all in a particular order, just make sure you are dedicating yourself to each part. For me, I usually like too wake up, then read my Bible, workout, and then finish it off with some reading.
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