My Daily Morning Attitude Adjustment

My Facebook status currently reads: Some mornings a stretching session is the best thing ever. To elaborate, let me start by describing how I spent my time pre-work today. The alarm went off at 6:00 and I made my way to my shiatsu massager. Along the way I grabbed a can of Mt. Dew, yesterday’s newspaper, kleenexes, and the TV remote. I sat for about half an hour trying to shake off the fog of sleep while I blew my nose and hawked up phlegm as my sinuses drained from lying down all night. After that I spent another half hour getting myself up and active by folding two weeks’ worth of laundry, picking up, and ironing my clothes for the day. Then a half hour of stretching, and it was wonderful. Sometimes stretching just loosens things up a little or the body doesn’t even respond, but today all my soreness and tension just melted away from it. That left me half an hour to shower, shave, and otherwise get ready for work. I ate right before bed last night, so I grabbed some mixed nuts, craisins, and a V-8 to nibble on once I got to work.

This is a fairly typical morning for me, although the mix of individual ingredients often changes. I am not a morning person, and I don’t just mean by habit or preference, I mean my body is physically different in the morning than later in the day. That’s just the way I am no matter what actual sleeping/waking patterns I keep. But I don’t just drag myself out of bed at the last possible moment. Instead, even though I don’t leave for work until 8:00, I set my alarm for 6:00 so I have plenty of time to get myself ready to face the world.

The first thought I have each time my alarm goes off is, Holy fuck, I feel like shit; there’s no way I can make it to work today. Luckily, my second thought is always, I have to pee, and that gets me up and moving. I almost always make my way to the massager to get things started, giving the sinuses time to drain and loosening my shoulder and neck tension. Mt. Dew is not typical. More often it’s tea, coffee, juice, Gatorade, or water. Coffee usually comes later, if that’s the choice. Sometimes there is Excedrin. Most often the news and newspaper, but sometimes the DVRed Daily Show and/or Colbert Report. Half an hour to forty five minutes usually gets me to a place where I can be active.

Stretching is good when the body responds, but I don’t force it. Sometimes I’ll sit on my recumbent bike, sometimes laundry, sometimes dishes or cooking lunch. Usually I try to do something to move around at least a little bit, but not always. Some days I wake with words burning a hole in my brain and I have to blog or write a book review or some such and spend time on the computer instead. Every once in a while I’ll balance the checkbook or pay bills. As long as I’m warming up for the day in some way and not going into work cold.

Sometimes I grab food on the go, other times I make a hearty breakfast. Just depends on what my body wants and what the day has in store. Always, of course, showering and getting dressed and all that stuff.

If I were to roll out of bed at the last possible moment with the minimal amount of activity, I would arrive at work still inside my head, grumpy and irritated by any interaction with people, and not very productive. Instead, my goal is to arrive feeling cheerful and sociable, productive from the get-go, and a boon to others' moods instead of a drag. I’ve learned that to achieve that goal I need extra time to work off waking, so that’s what I do.