Starting Your Day Out Right

How many times have you woken up and just lounged around in bed for hours on end? How many times have you hit the snooze button about 50 times only to get up at the last second for whatever is you have to do? How many times have you shuffled your way into the kitchen, barely able to do communicate more than a groan as you fumble around with the coffee maker in a half-conscious daze? This is how most people start their mornings on any given day of the week: groggy, grumpy, and half-asleep. The way your start your morning influences the rest of your day. A person who starts his morning in a positive way typically has a positive day. If you walk into the office with a smile on your face and a spring in your step, your mood can be contagious and it can spread to the rest of the office, making the rest of your day a little better than it may have been otherwise. But if you spend more mornings than not staggering out of your room moaning and groaning your way to work in a way that resembles the staggerings and moanings of a b-movie zombie, then chances are your day will not be as enjoyable as it could be.

Look around at your coworkers next chance you get. Notice their hair, their clothing, their eyes, smiles, and their posture. Can you tell which ones just threw themselves together in the morning while they were still half-asleep? Do you look like one of those people? Does your hair look kind of messy? Are your eyes drooping? Are you smiling? Do your clothes look they were hastily thrown on because you barely had time to get ready? These traits are no good at all. If your friends and/or coworkers only ever see you dressed shabbily and looking groggy and ill-kept, you are not projecting the image that you are a successful, happy person who knows how to take care of himself (all of which are DHVs). Remember, the self-improvement that comes from being a Venusian Artist is not just limited to your behaviour in a nightclub or a bar, it needs to be evident in every aspect of your life or you will lack congruence in the field. Nobody wants to be labelled as the grumpy person, the lazy guy, the boring (translation: low-energy) guy. Everybody wants a fun happy label because that’s who you should be: fun, happy, loving and full of excitement. And if you can look good while you are doing it, then it just compounds those DHVs! A good start to your morning can really help make this happen.

So what does it take?

The first step is waking up. Set your alarm for a decent time that gives you an hour or two before work. Studies have show that as an adult your body needs about eight hours of sleep. But really, it’s mind over matter when it comes to this. If you’re having a regular day you can most likely get away with anywhere from five to seven hours. You can eventually train your body to do this every night. However, if you have a full day planned out for yourself you should play it safe and get the eight hours as that will ensure that you are rested and refreshed for the long day ahead.

A major problem for a lot of people with too much free time is oversleeping. The longer you stay in bed, the more relaxed you feel, and while this may be a good thing on a rainy Sunday morning, it can also trick your body into thinking that is more tired than it actually is, making it even harder to get out of bed. You should always try to avoid sleeping for more than 9 hours a night. Any more than that, and your body will start to think that it’s still tired and want to sleep even more. You can actually end up more exhausted by sleeping for 12-14 hours than by sleeping for 6-7 hours.

Avoid the snooze button at all costs. If you try to go back to sleep for more than 10-15 minutes after you have already woken up, your body will try to go back into it’s sleep cycle and want to sleep even longer than it would have otherwise. Put your alarm clock somewhere out of reach. Your best bet here is to stick it across the room. The point of this is pretty obvious: to get your ass up and out of bed and not just stick your arm out to smack the snooze button. If you’re a heavy sleeper, get a clock radio alarm and set it to a fuzzy station with the volume set to max to make sure you can’t just ignore it for a little while before getting up. If you want to even go that little extra you can jump online and buy an alarm clock that will run around the room until you chase it down to turn the damn thing off. Other tricks to getting up can include keeping your window open to allow the sunlight into your room in the morning; our bodies are powered by the sun… kind of like superman to a very small degree. If you’re a coffee drinker you can also try getting a coffee maker with a set timer on it and set it a minute or two after your alarm is set to go off and make sure to not put the pot in, this is a sure way to get your ass out of bed (assuming you don’t want a kitchen counter full of messy coffee).

Step two is setting your mood for the day. Do something productive such as cleaning your room, doing your laundry, writing in your blog, indulging in one of your hobbies or doing the dishes while listening to some high beat, high energy, and high volume music, or better yet, if you have the time in the mornings you can do all of the above. You can kill two birds with one stone here, if you’re cleaning then you are keeping your environment clean and maintained, if your blogging or catching up on a hobby then you are improving and expanding your mind. Once you start getting shit done it can really amp up your state and make you feel productive. Do your morning exercise routine (everybody should have one of these, it could be a jog, weights, yoga, just do something active!) then jump on into the shower. Get a shower radio or even sing to yourself, anything to amp your state up even more, the more good feeling in you the better. Once out of the shower put some nice clothes on, do up your hair and make yourself all nice and pretty. It’s very important to feel good about yourself. Hell, you can even go as far as telling yourself how good you look in the mirror. It may sound silly at first, but positive affirmations like this can really reinforce an energetic, confident state for the day. Finally, make sure that you eat. Your body is your vessel and it needs the nutrients necessary to get through the day so eat up and get the energy your body needs. Try to eat something healthy and avoid the fast-food breakfasts if you can.

Usually in the morning most of us have places to be such as work or school so for the most part this will all be condensed into anywhere from an hour to two hours, all depending on what time you need to leave the house. These are all suggestions for things you and (and should) be doing when you wake up. You will need to make a personal morning routine that fits your life.

On your way over to your destination you should be keeping your state at a high. You should be walking into the door of wherever you’re going with that same good feeling you built up all morning. For some of us it can take 5 minutes to get to where we are going, some may take up to an hour or so, either way I find that some good, up-beat music will help with that. In the car on your stereo or taking the shoe lace express with your ipod or mp3 player, if you have some good tunes pumping you up it will make the trip to your destination all the more enjoyable.

Note: coffee and energy drinks, while not the healthiest choice, can be excellent at giving you that extra boost to your energy levels in the morning. Just don’t go over board on the stuff because they can be addictive. I’m sure we’ve all seen someone we know acting all bitchy and moody because they haven’t had their morning coffee yet. You don’t want to be that guy.

All in all, these are simply guide lines on how to start your day in a positive way. Again, the way your start your day can have a major impact on the rest of it. The goal is to pump up your state and put you into the best mood you can be in for the day. Get up, be active, look good, and feel good about yourself before you even step foot out of the door to head to your destination. And don’t forget to wear your smile when you walk out that door!

- Wild Card

Tagged as: dhv, excitement, fun, happy, self improvement, venusian artist