The joys of rising early are many!

(This post is the third in the 'Rising Early series'. You may want to begin reading from the first post and then move on to the second post. )

It has been 12 days since I have been consciously waking up at 6:00 in the morning and I am already beginning to see how beautiful it feels! In the solitude of the early morning times, when the day begins to unfold itself, there is a certain blossoming that happens within each one of us. It is so much easier to be aware of oneself in such a serene atmosphere. I have been using this time to meditate after some stretching yoga and it has been so rewarding!

The first major change that I have seen is that I can now find time to have my breakfast in leisure! Wouldn't it be lovely if you could start your day with the feeling that you are on top of your schedule and have time in hand? Most of us rush through our mornings and see the initial feeling snowballing into the general tendency of catching up with our schedules when one would say 'Oh, no! I am so late again!'. Often, we hurry through our breakfast; at times skipping it altogether! And then by noon when we begin to feel drained, we wonder why. Let me tell you, just this past one week of waking up at 6:00 am has brought about such a change in my routine. Instead of catching up with the rest of the day, I can now look at my day from the vantage point of this ‘extra time’ in the mornings. It is indeed such an empowering feeling!

Though I am still working towards waking up early on a daily basis, it naturally feels difficult once in a while. But, something wonderful happened today – I woke up on my own this morning! And that too, just a few minutes before the alarm bells began to coax me out of the comforts of the warm mattress! Certainly, my body-clock is getting adjusted to the new lifestyle that I have ‘chosen’ for myself. There are a few more things that I am doing consistently in addition to what I mentioned in my last post. I will enlist them as my observations:

1)      Divorce the mobile phone in the bed

Yes, I really mean it! Most of us go to bed with our 'smart' phones and I have seen that it is not really a smart thing to do. Foremost, the radiation that emits from the device has been time and again proven to be affecting our health. Especially while sleeping, when you place your mobile phone close to your head – beside your pillow.

And important to our goal, the closer the mobile to you as an alarm, the better the chances that you’ll snooze it! Keeping the alarm/mobile phone farthest from the bed goes a long way in waking you up as well.

2)      Ease into the ‘sleep mode’

Another thing that we are prone to doing is to go to bed immediately after spending hours in front of the computer/TV. In this case, the mind is still buzzing with the various thins that kept you occupied for so long. This is when you’d notice that you are unable to fall asleep for long after you have gone to bed! I have seen that reading a book or listening to soothing music just before going to bed helps falling asleep the moment you hit the bed.

3)      Don’t use your favorite tune as your alarm ringtone!

You might be allured into thinking that you’d want to wake up to that beautiful tune. But, more often than not, you’d find yourself admiring that tune in your dreams!

I hope you have been seeing this change in your own life as you have pursued your own dream routines. If you are still waiting to begin with one at the right time, let me check the time now…. Oh, yes! It says – It is the RIGHT TIME now!